Kimberly Thomas is a clinical professor of law in the Juvenile Justice Clinic and the Civil-Criminal Litigation Clinic. Her research, teaching, and practice concentrate on criminal law and procedure, especially on sentencing law and practice, juvenile justice, parole and post-conviction, and indigent persons accused of crimes. She is the co-director and co-founder (with Professor Frank Vandervort) of the Juvenile Justice Clinic.

In 2017, Thomas received a Fulbright Scholar award to teach and research juvenile justice at the School of Law at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. In 2013, Thomas was among several attorneys honored with the Justice for All Award from the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan. They were recognized for their training and pro bono support following the 2012 US Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama​​​​, which held that mandatory juvenile life-without-parole sentences were unconstitutional.

Thomas also has been engaged as a legal education expert for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative in Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey. That includes in 2011, when she spent three months in Amman, Jordan, working on law school curriculum development, especially in criminal law, as well as the creation and support of experiential education and the first clinics in the country.

Before joining the Law School faculty in 2003, Thomas served as a major trials attorney with Defender Association of Philadelphia.