Jordan Gross

Professor Gross teaches and researches in the areas of Criminal Law and Procedure, Criminal Justice in Indian Country, Comparative Criminal Law and Procedure, and Professional Ethics. Professor Jordan Gross joined the University of Idaho College of Law Faculty in Fall 2023. Professor Gross taught at the University of Montana Blewett School from 2010-2023, and served as its Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2022-2023. Professor Gross was the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Public Policy and Criminal Justice at the University of Guelph, Ontario from January 2022-August 2022.

Professor Gross is the Director of the Rural Justice Initiative, a program that engages in interdisciplinary criminal justice research integrating the experiences and needs of rural and Indigenous communities. She is also an Affiliated Faculty Fellow with the American Indian Governance and Policy Institute at the University of Montana.

Professor Gross is a member of the bar in Montana and in Washington State. She is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for Montana, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

Before she started teaching in 2010, Professor Gross was a partner in a litigation firm in Seattle. In private practice she represented individuals and businesses in complex litigation and appeals involving federal criminal allegations, contract disputes, fraud allegations, securities law, federal billing practices, whistleblower allegations, and state and federal constitutional issues. As a private attorney, Professor Gross regularly represented indigent federal criminal defendants as appointed counsel under the Criminal Justice Act. While in private practice, Professor Gross volunteered with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington as a Co-operating Attorney and as a member of its Legal Committee. Before entering private practice, Professor Gross clerked for United States District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein of the Western District of Washington and for Washington State Court of Appeals Judge Susan R. Agid.

Professor Gross earned B.A. degrees in Political Science and English Literature from the University of Washington in 1989. She earned her J.D. degree, cum laude, from Howard University School of Law in 1993, where she was a member of the law review.

Professor Gross’ scholarship focuses on the distribution, exercise, and regulation of criminal adjudicatory power in federal systems and on interdisciplinary criminal justice reform. Areas of inquiry include:

1. allocations of criminal jurisdiction among federal, Tribal, State, and local governments;
2. comparative federal, Tribal, State, and international criminal law and procedure;
3. disproportionate representation of Indigenous persons, especially women and girls, in settler-colonial criminal adjudicatory systems;
4. and incorporating the experiences and needs of rural and Indigenous communities in criminal justice reform.

University of Montana Blewett School of Law (2010-2023)

• Maylinn Smith Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) Excellence in Teaching Award 2022 – recognizing efforts to significantly incorporate Indian Law concepts throughout teaching
• Heman Faculty Award 2022 – recognizing excellence in teaching, especially innovation in the classroom and creative approaches to remote and online learning
• University of Montana Faculty Merit Award 2021 - recognizing outstanding institutional performance
• Margery Hunter Brown Faculty Merit Award 2018 – recognizing the spirit of professionalism and professorial qualities for which Margery Hunter Brown was known
• University of Montana Faculty Merit Award 2018 – recognizing outstanding institutional performance
• Law School Merit Award 2017 – recognizing outstanding service to the School of Law
• Graduation Luncheon Speaker & Graduation Ceremony Reader 2016 (selected by student vote; akin to “Teacher of the Year” Award)
• Robert and Pauline Poore Law Faculty Service Award 2016 – recognizing service to the profession and the public that is particularly noteworthy
• James C. Garlington Teaching Award 2015 – recognizing excellence in teaching
• Thomas H. and Ann Boone Law Faculty Scholarship Award 2014 – recognizing excellence in scholarship
• University of Montana Faculty Merit Award 2014 – recognizing outstanding institutional performance
• University of Montana School of Law Advanced Trial Advocacy Program Certificate of Participation and Appreciation 2014 – recognizing dedication and invaluable service as a faculty member
• Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) Excellence in Teaching Award 2014 - recognizing efforts to significantly incorporate Indian Law concepts throughout teaching
• Margery Hunter Brown Faculty Merit Award 2013 – recognizing the spirit of professionalism and professorial qualities for which Margery Hunter Brown was known
• University of Montana Faculty Merit Award 2012 – recognizing outstanding institutional performance

Law Review Articles

• Pretrial Justice in Out-of-the-Way Places – Including Rural Communities in the Bail Reform Conversation, Montana Law Review (invited submission) (Summer 2023, forthcoming). 
• Pretrial Justice in Indian Country and Bordertowns – Including Indigenous Communities in the Bail Reform Conversation, work in progress. 
• Making Space for Indigenous Norms in Settler-Colonial Justice: Criminal Procedure as a Vehicle and Boundary for Self-Determination Interests in Canada and the United States, (work in progress incorporating Fulbright Award 2021 research).  
• Taking Stock: Open Questions and Unfinished Business Under VAWA Amendments to the Indian Civil Rights Act, 73(2) Hastings Law Journal 475 (2022).
• Incorporation by any other Name? Comparing Congress’ Federalization of Tribal Court Criminal Procedure with the Supreme Court’s Regulation of State Courts, 109 Kentucky Law Journal 299 (2020/21).
• Devil Take the Hindmost – Reform Considerations for States with a Constitutional Right to Bail, 52(4) Akron Law Review 1043 (2018).
• Through a Federal Habeas Corpus Glass, Darkly – Who Is Entitled to Effective Assistance of Counsel In Tribal Court and How Will We Know If They Got It?, 42 American Indian Law Review (University of Oklahoma) 1 (2017).
• VAWA 2013’s Right to Appointed Counsel in Tribal Court Proceedings – A Rising Tide That Lifts All Boats or a Procedural Windfall for Non-Indian Defendants?, 67 Case Western Reserve Law Review 379 (2016).
• Let the Jury Fit the Crime: Increasing Native American Jury Pool Representation in Federal Judicial Districts with Indian Country Criminal Jurisdiction, 77 Montana Law Review 281 (2016) (invited submission).
• The Upside Down Mississippi Problem: Addressing Procedural Disparity Between Federal and State Criminal Defendants as the Federalization, Nationalization and Standardization Tide Recedes, 38 Hamline Law Review 1 (2015).
• An Ounce of Pretrial Prevention is Worth More Than a Pound of Post-Conviction Cure: Untethering Federal Pretrial Criminal Procedure From Due Process Standards of Review, 18 Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law (2013).
• If Skilling Can’t Get a Change of Venue, Who Can? Salvaging Common Law Implied Bias Principles from the Wreckage of the Constitutional Pretrial Publicity Standard, 85 Temple Law Review, 575 (2013) [excerpt reprinted in: Alisa Smith, LAW, SOCIAL SCIENCE, AND THE CRIMINAL COURTS (2nd ed. 2020) at 309].
• A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy? Homelessness and the Fourth Amendment – State v. Mooney, Student Note, 36 Howard Law Journal 75 (1993).

Book Chapter

• Ethical Considerations in Environmental Crime Prosecution and Defense, ISSUES OF LEGAL ETHICS IN THE PRACTICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (ABA 2017).