Rate My Professor Brian Farrell

Brian Farrell is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the University of Iowa College of Law, a position he has held since 2021 after serving as Lecturer in Legal Instruction from 2015 to 2021 and in various adjunct roles earlier. He directs the Citizen Lawyer Program since 2015, serves as Associate Director of the UI Center for Human Rights since 2015, and directs the undergraduate Human Rights Certificate Program. Additionally, he is co-chair of the Law and Rurality Collaborative Research Network and advisor to the Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems journal. Farrell's prior legal practice includes solo practice in Goose Lake and Cedar Rapids, Iowa from 2002-2005 and 2006-2009; Assistant Public Defender in the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, Georgia in 2006; Associate at Schoenthaler, Roberg, Bartelt & Kahler in Maquoketa, Iowa from 1999-2001; Judicial Clerk for the Seventh Judicial District of Iowa in 1998-1999; and Prosecuting Intern for the Clinton County Attorney’s Office in 1997. His academic background comprises a Ph.D. in International Human Rights Law from the National University of Ireland Galway in 2014, LL.M. with first class honors in International Human Rights Law from the same institution in 2002, J.D. with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1998, and B.A. magna cum laude in History/Secondary Education from Saint Ambrose University in 1995.

Farrell teaches international law, criminal law, human rights courses, Wrongful Convictions & the American Criminal Justice System, Jessup International Moot Court Team, and Introduction to Human Rights to law students and undergraduates. His research specializations encompass human rights, international law, criminal law, access to justice, and law and rurality. Major publications include the book Habeas Corpus in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017); "Theorizing Legal Vulnerability to Enhance Rural Access to Justice" with Daria Fisher Page and Ryan T. Sakoda (69 South Dakota Law Review 458, 2024); "One Crisis or Two Problems? Disentangling Rural Access to Justice and the Rural Attorney Shortage" with Daria Fisher Page (98 Washington Law Review 849, 2023); "Habeas Corpus" in Elgar Encyclopedia of Human Rights (2021); "Voluntary Adoption of Evidence-Based Practices by Local Law Enforcement: Eyewitness Identification Procedures in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska" with Neal S. McNabb and Carlee R. Brown (20 Journal of Gender, Race & Justice 509, 2017); and earlier works such as "Access to Habeas Corpus: A Human Rights Analysis of U.S. Practices in the War on Terrorism" (20 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 3, 2011).