Professional Biography

Joel Atlas teaches first-year lawyering and an upper-level course on oral-presentation skills. After graduation from Boston University School of Law, Professor Atlas practiced law for 15 years, first as Associate Appellate Counsel and ultimately as Supervising Attorney, for the Criminal Appeals Bureau of the New York Legal Aid Society. During that time, he also taught first-year writing at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, a seminar on appellate advocacy at Brooklyn Law School, and the criminal appellate advocacy clinic at New York University School of Law. He joined Cornell Law School's Lawyering Program faculty in 2000 and became Director in 2006.