Rebecca L. Sandefur

Rebecca L. Sandefur is Professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. Her research investigates access to civil justice from every angle—from how legal services are delivered and consumed; to how civil legal aid is organized around the nation; to the role of pro bono; to the relative efficacy of lawyers, nonlawyers, and digital tools as advisers and representatives; to how ordinary people think about their justice problems and try to resolve them.

In 2013, Sandefur was The Hague Visiting Chair in the Rule of Law. In 2015, she was named Champion of Justice by the National Center for Access to Justice. In 2018, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on inequality and access to justice. She is currently Editor of Law & Society Review. In 2020, she was awarded the Warren E. Burger Award by the National Center for State Courts. 

Sandefur was born in and spent her early years in Oklahoma, and is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation.