Ty Alper is a Clinical Professor of Law at U.C. Berkeley School of Law, where he co-directs the Death Penalty Clinic, supervising law students in the representation of individuals facing execution in state and federal jurisdictions across the country. Alper previously served as Associate Dean for Experiential Education at Berkeley Law, and he is currently the Co-Director of the Berkeley Law Clinical Program. In 2021-22, he served as Chair of the University of California’s system-wide Committee on Academic Freedom. From 2014-2022, he served as an elected member of the Berkeley (Ca.) Board of Education, which oversees the Berkeley public school system.
Before joining Berkeley Law in 2004, Ty Alper was a staff attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. A former law clerk to Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Alper also served as senior articles editor of the New York University Law Review.
At the Southern Center, Alper represented Alabama and Georgia death row inmates in all stages of state and federal post-conviction proceedings. He also represented hundreds of Alabama prisoners in federal class-action litigation concerning unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Alper previously served as an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Criminal Justice Clinic, where he received an LL.M. in Trial Advocacy.
Alper has won the Ray L. Casterline Award for Excellence in Writing from Federation of State Medical Boards for his article on the role of state medical boards in the regulation of physician participation in executions; the “Angel Award” from California Lawyer in recognition of his “fierce commitment to pro bono cases”; and the Recent Graduate Award from New York University School of Law in recognition of his professional achievements. In his concurring opinion in Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008), Justice John Paul Stevens cited Alper’s research into state animal euthanasia statutes and lethal injection protocols.
Representative publications include “Third-Party Sexual Harassment: The Challenge of Title IX Obligations for Law School Clinics” (Washington Law Review, 2021); “Criminal Defense Attorney Confidentiality in the Age of Social Media” (Criminal Justice, 2016); “The United States Execution Drug Shortage: A Consequence of Our Values” (Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2014); “Blind Dates: When Should the Statute of Limitations Begin to Run on a Method-of-Execution Challenge?” (Duke Law Journal, 2011); and, “Stories Told and Untold: Lawyering Theory Analyses of the First Rodney King Assault Trial” (with Anthony G. Amsterdam, et al., Clinical Law Review, 2005).
Alper is a member of the California, District of Columbia, Georgia, and Alabama bars.
Education
B.A., Brown University (1995)
J.D., New York University (1998)
LL.M., Georgetown University (2004)
Ty Alper is teaching the following courses in Spring 2025:
• 285.3D sec. 001 - Death Penalty Clinic Seminar II
• 295.5D sec. 001 - Death Penalty Clinic
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2024 | 285.2D sec. 001 | Death Penalty Clinic Seminar I | View Teaching Evaluation | 295.5D sec. 001 | Death Penalty Clinic | View Teaching Evaluation | Spring 2024 | 285.3D sec. 001 | Death Penalty Clinic Seminar II | View Teaching Evaluation | 295.5D sec. 001 | Death Penalty Clinic | View Teaching Evaluation |
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