Akin Adepoju, J.D., LLM
Adjunct Professor of Law
Akin Adepoju is an award-winning lawyer, legal scholar, and criminal justice expert.
Professor Adepoju’s litigation, teaching, and research centers on criminal law and procedure, death penalty, bail, trial and sentencing advocacy, legal ethics, as well as race and inequality in the legal system. He is a frequently sought-after speaker on legal issues nationally.
He has represented people in state and federal court, from state capital cases to federal trials, appeals, and capital habeas cases, handling trials, sentencing proceedings, motions, appeals, and other matters, including filing cert. petitions in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Professor Adepoju serves as an Attorney Advisor in the Defender Services Office of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, and previously served as Lead Trial Attorney and Assistant Federal Defender in the District of Delaware and Western District of Pennsylvania – the only attorney in the District to serve in the Trial and Capital Habeas Units. He has also served as a J. Kirk Osborn Fellow at the Fair Trial Initiative litigating death penalty cases.
He teaches Advanced Criminal Procedure and Death Penalty and the Law. In addition to his legal work and teaching, Professor Adepoju is active in a variety of service activities on and off campus, including serving as faculty advisor for UDC Law’s Criminal Law Society and on the Board of Directors of several organizations.
He graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, earned his J.D. cum laude from Rhode Island’s Roger Williams University School of Law, where he was a Dean’s Scholar, and his LL.M. from Temple University School of Law as a Public Interest Scholar. Professor Adepoju was the recipient of the Feinstein Alumni Public Interest Award in 2012, Gideon’s Trumpet Award in 2021 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Federal Defender program and public defense, and the Champion for Justice Award in 2022.
