Professor Daniel J. Canon is a civil rights lawyer, educator, writer and activist. He serves as director of externships and assistant professor of law at the Brandeis School of Law, where he teaches courses on civil rights and civil procedure. His research examines collective action, the criminal legal system and the role of courts in preventing election violence.

In practice, Professor Canon has built a national reputation as counsel in major civil rights cases. He served as lead counsel for the Kentucky plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized marriage equality nationwide. He also represented couples in Miller v. Davis, in which a Kentucky clerk refused to issue marriage licenses, and protesters in Nwanguma v. Trump. His work includes cases involving wrongful convictions, police misconduct and the rights of incarcerated people. He is of counsel to Saeed & Little LLP and has been recognized for more than a decade as one of the region’s top constitutional rights attorneys.

Professor Canon is licensed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, and state courts in Kentucky and Indiana.

An active writer and commentator, his work has appeared in The Washington Post, National Law Journal, Above the Law, Salon, Truthout and Slate. His bestselling book, Pleading Out: How Plea Bargaining Creates a Permanent Criminal Class, explores the impact of plea bargaining on the U.S. justice system.