Bryan Stevenson

Who is Bryan Stevenson?

Bryan A. Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a private, non-profit organization headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, and is a professor at New York University School of Law. He has gained national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color in the criminal justice system. Stevenson has assisted in securing relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, advocated for poor people and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.

A graduate of Eastern College, Harvard Law School, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, he has won the American Bar Association's Wisdom Award for public service, the ACLU's National Medal of Liberty, a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award, the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Thurgood Marshall Medal of Justice, the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award, the Olof Palme Prize, Stanford Law School's National Public Service Award, and the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers named him the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year.