Adam Murphy

A man standing with his hands folded in front of bookcases.

Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Federal Habeas Clinic

Areas of Expertise: Criminal Law and Procedure

Adam Murphy is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Federal Habeas Clinic. He has litigated appellate, post-conviction, and federal habeas cases throughout the United States.

Before joining Fordham’s faculty, Professor Murphy was a Clinical Teaching Fellow with New York University School of Law’s Federal Appellate Clinic. At NYU, he also taught a seminar about criminal defense practice.

As a practitioner, he was an Assistant Counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. ("LDF"), where he successfully briefed and argued significant constitutional cases. In Commonwealth v. Dew, 492 Mass. 254 (2023), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court became the first in the country to evaluate defense counsel’s racial and religious bias under an actual-conflict-of-interest framework. In United States v. Smith, 349 A.3d 1247 (2026), the D.C. Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, clarified the role of trial judges in adjudicating jury-discrimination claims. He also served as lead counsel for two clients who were granted release following juvenile life-without-parole sentences.

Professor Murphy began his career as a Staff Attorney and Law Fellow with the Equal Justice Initiative, where he represented people on Alabama's death row. He was also an appellate public defender in New York City with the Office of the Appellate Defender, where he served as counsel of record in People v. Murray, 197 A.D.3d 46 (1st Dep't 2021), in which the Appellate Division, for the first time in many years, concluded that the trial-level prosecutor excluded a Black prospective juror on the basis of race in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).

Professor Murphy has advocated successfully for the release of nine people at state parole boards, including five people who were serving life sentences. He also co-founded and served as the licensed bail bond agent for the Washington Square Legal Services Bail Fund, a not-for-profit organization that posted bail for dozens of people. His op-eds about the criminal legal system have appeared on CNN and in the New York Daily News.

Professor Murphy graduated from New York University School of Law in 2017, where he was an Arthur Garfield Hays Fellow. At graduation, he received the Vanderbilt Medal, the Ann Petluck Poses Memorial Prize, and the Eric Dean Bender Prize. He is a graduate of Vassar College.