Kate Stith

Kate Stith-Cabranes is the Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she has taught since 1985. Her expertise is in criminal law, criminal procedure, and constitutional law.

She holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College, and a J.D. and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University. After her studies, she clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White.

Before joining the faculty at Yale, Professor Stith served as a staff economist for President Jimmy Carter's Council of Economic Advisers and as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. She also worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted cases involving white-collar and organized crime.

At Yale Law School, she has served in several leadership roles, including Acting Dean in 2009, making her the first woman to hold that position. Her notable publications include the book "Fear of Judging: Sentencing Guidelines in the Federal Courts," co-authored with her husband, Judge José A. Cabranes, which received a Certificate of Merit from the American Bar Association in 1999.

Sources:

Kate Stith. (n.d.). Yale Law School. https://law.yale.edu/kate-stith

https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/faculty/stith_k._cv_23-05.pdf

Fear of judging. (2025, July 24). University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3683348.html