McCormack previously served as Michigan Law’s associate dean for clinical affairs, clinical professor of law, and co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, a non-DNA clinic representing wrongfully convicted Michigan prisoners. She also taught in the Michigan Clinical Law Program, a domestic violence clinic, and a pediatric advocacy clinic at the Law School.
Before joining the Law School faculty, she was a Cover Fellow at Yale Law School and taught in Yale’s clinical programs. She previously worked as a staff attorney with the Office of the Appellate Defender and was a senior trial attorney with the Criminal Defense Division of the Legal Aid Society, both in New York City.
McCormack was elected to The American Law Institute in 2013. The attorney general of the United States appointed her to the National Commission on Forensic Science in 2014. In 2019, the governor of Michigan named her co-chair of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration. In 2020, she joined the American Bar Association’s Council on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar and currently serves as vice chair. In 2021, the governor of Michigan asked her to co-chair the Michigan Task Force on Forensic Science and to chair the Michigan Jail Reform Advisory Council. She also chaired the Michigan Judicial Council, the strategic planning body for the judicial branch. In 2021, McCormack was also appointed to serve nationally on The Council of State Governments Healthy States National Task Force and the ABA Center for Innovation’s Governing Council. She was also named chair of the ABA Board of Elections.
McCormack is an editor of the ABA’s preeminent publication, Litigation Journal. She speaks and writes frequently about access to justice, innovation in the legal profession, and legal education. She has been published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, the Tennessee Law Review, and the Windsor Access to Justice Journal.
She received the Justice for All Award (with Innocence Clinic co-director Professor David Moran) from the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan in 2010, as well as Cooley Law School’s Distinguished Brief Award and the Washtenaw County Bar Association’s Patriot Award.
