Elaine Chiu
Director

Elaine is Professor of Law and the Director of the Ronald H. Brown Center of Civil Rights at St. John’s University School of Law in New York City.   For the past seven years, she has led a premier diversity law school pipeline program called the Ron Brown Prep Program.  As one of the most innovative and established pipeline programs in the country, it has been part of the journeys of more than 200 individuals who attended or are attending more than 54 different law schools. Many alumni now practice in the boardrooms, courtrooms and non-profit offices around the country.

Professor Chiu is also a respected scholar who has written about difficult issues in contemporary criminal justice including intimate partner violence, and the intersection of cultural beliefs and criminal liability. Each year, she teaches Criminal Law, Family Law, a civil rights course called Perspectives on Justice and the Lawyering skills course at St. John’s Law.

Prior to coming to St. John's, Professor Chiu was a Research Fellow at Columbia University School of Law, a Climenko-Thayer Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School, and an adjunct faculty member at Cardozo Law School.  Before teaching, she served as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan under Robert Morgenthau.  

Professor Chiu is a first generation college alumna and cum laude graduate of Cornell University. She earned her JD at Columbia University School of Law where she was a Senior Editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.