Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Yale Law School

Marisol Orihuela is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her teaching and practice areas include criminal defense, civil commitment, immigration, and civil rights. At Yale Law School, she recently founded the Mental Health Justice Clinic, where law students advocate on behalf of individuals with mental disabilities through litigation and policy advocacy. Professor Orihuela’s research interests lie at the intersection of criminal and immigration law, and criminal and mental health law. She has written on competency and detention during criminal proceedings, social movements and the law, and lawyering in immigrant rights, criminal defense, and on behalf of individuals with mental disabilities.

Before joining the Yale Law School faculty, Professor Orihuela was a Deputy Federal Public Defender at the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles. She has previously worked as a Staff Attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, focusing on immigration detention issues and criminal justice reform. Professor Orihuela clerked for the Honorable Rosemary Barkett of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Honorable Consuelo B. Marshall of the Central District of California. Professor Orihuela is a graduate of Boston College and Yale Law School.