Professor Jessica Lefort is a clinical assistant professor in the Legal Practice Program. Prior to joining the Law School, she was a deputy defender with the Federal Defender Office in Detroit, representing indigent criminal defendants in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Lefort previously was an Honors Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, in Washington, D.C., where she prosecuted national and international criminal conspiracies involving price-fixing and bid-rigging, as well as procurement fraud cases involving Iraq and Afghanistan war reconstruction contracts. 

She received a Public Service Award from the Law School for her extensive service to the Public Interest Law Association that, among other things, provided scholarships for students pursuing unpaid public interest internships. In law school, Lefort co-edited the Mitigation Compendium for the Death Penalty Defense Team with notable death penalty litigator and former University of Michigan Law School Professor Andrea Lyon.

Related Information

Areas of Interest

Education

  • Grand Valley State University, BA
  • DePaul University, JD, summa cum laude, Order of the Coif, Dean's Scholar, Faculty Scholar, Law Review

Recent Courses

Clerkships

  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Hon. James B. Moran
  • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Magistrate Judges David R. Grand and Elizabeth A. Stafford