The 2017 Edward Ross Lecture in Litigation

April 05, 2017

“Representing the Powerless”




About Stuart Lev

Stuart Lev is a career public defender – and proud of it.  After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, he worked as an appellate defender at the Michigan State Appellate Defender Office.  After returning to Philadelphia in 1986, he joined the Defender Association of Philadelphia where he practiced as both a trial and appellate lawyer.  In 1996, he became an Assistant Federal Defender in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.  He has helped win new trials and/or re-sentencings for dozens of death-sentenced prisoners.

Stuart has argued numerous cases in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as in the Pennsylvania and Michigan state courts.  In February 2016 he argued Williams v.  Pennsylvania in the United States Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled in his favor.  That same year, he won national recognition as the Outstanding Assistant Federal Defender in a Capital Habeas Unit.

Stuart was an Adjunct Professor at Villanova Law School, where he co-taught a course in death penalty litigation from 2004-2014.  He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, where he taught legal writing and appellate advocacy from 1990-1996. He has been a faculty member in numerous training programs Pennsylvania and around the country.