About Ben Trachtenberg

Professor Trachtenberg teaches Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Professional Responsibility, and an undergraduate course on American law. With Professor Anne Alexander, he is the author of Criminal Procedure: A Free Law School Casebook. Since 2022, he has served as Director of the University of Missouri Office of Academic Integrity.

Professor Trachtenberg is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation. He has published in the Florida Law Review, the Oregon Law Review, the Hastings Law Journal, the Nebraska Law Review, the New York Times, and the ABA Journal, among other publications.

Professor Trachtenberg received his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was Articles Editor on the Columbia Law Review and recipient of several academic awards. He has an M.A. in International Studies, with first class honors, from the University of Limerick, Ireland (attending on what was then called the George J. Mitchell Scholarship) and a B.A. from Yale in Political Science, with distinction. After graduating from law school, Professor Trachtenberg clerked at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit with Judge José A. Cabranes.

In 2012, Professor Trachtenberg received the Gold Chalk Award for excellence in teaching from the University of Missouri Graduate Professional Council.  In 2014, he won the Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award, and in 2015, he received the Husch Blackwell Distinguished Faculty Award from the School of Law. He has won awards for university leadership from the MU campus and the UM System.

Professor Trachtenberg previously represented the law school on the MU Faculty Council on University Policy, which he chaired during 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. Trachtenberg was Director of Undergraduate Studies for the School of Law from 2019-2023, helping to create the undergraduate Minor in Law. From January 2020 to May 2021, he served as Special Advisor to the MU Chancellor. Professor Trachtenberg served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Law from 2021-2025.

Professor Trachtenberg joined the University of Missouri School of Law faculty in 2010.  Before coming to Missouri, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School from 2008-2010, teaching Criminal Law and Environmental Law.  In practice, he was a Litigation Associate at Covington & Burling LLP.

Educational Background

• BA, with distinction, Yale University, '01
• MA , University of Limerick, '02
• JD , Columbia University, '05

Recent Publications

• Hiring and Training Competent Title IX Hearing Officers
  86 MISSOURI LAW REVIEW 261 (Winter 2021).
• The People v. Their Universities: How Popular Discontent Is Reshaping Higher Education Law
  108 KENTUCKY LAW JOURNAL 47 (2019-2020).
• The 2015 University of Missouri Protests and their Lessons for Higher Education Policy and Administration
  107 KENTUCKY LAW JOURNAL 61 (2018-2019).