Dan Filler is an expert on criminal law and procedure, death penalty law, children’s
rights and juvenile justice law, special education law and trial-practice skills.
Professor Filler earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law after serving as
Note & Comment editor for the New York University Law Review and placing first in the
Orison S. Marden Moot Court Competition. He also worked as research assistant for former
Professor John Sexton, who is now president of NYU.
He clerked for Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit before becoming assistant public defender for the Defender Association of
Philadelphia and then staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders. He also completed a stint
as associate with the New York firm, Debevoise & Plimpton.
Before coming to Drexel, Professor Filler served as a tenured faculty member at the
University of Alabama School of Law.
His research focuses on matters of criminal justice and procedure, including children’s
rights, death-penalty law, fairness to young offenders and Constitutional rights in an
age of terrorism. His articles have included “Silence and the Racial Dimension of Megan’s
Law,” in the Iowa Law Review, and “Terrorism, Pedophilia and Panic,” in the Virginia
Journal of Social Policy and the Law.
He chaired an American Bar Association team that assessed the fairness and accuracy of
Alabama’s death-penalty system, culminating in a report issued in 2006.
His activities have also included organizing and presenting a panel on “Cultural
Competence for Clinicians: Engaging Students on their Own Terms,” at the AALS Clinical
Conference in 2007 and participating in a Workshop for the Future: Criminal Law Clinics
Evolved at the AALS Clinical Conference in 2004.
Professor Filler contributes to "The Faculty Lounge," a blog about law,
culture, and academia: "http://www.thefacultylounge.org/"
