Michael J. Churgin is the Raybourne Thompson Centennial Professor in Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Brown University and received a JD from Yale Law School where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, he was a supervising attorney and teaching fellow at Yale for to years, specializing in the mental health and prison legal services clinics. A specialist in criminal procedure (including juvenile justice), immigration, and mental health law, Professor Churgin has written numerous articles in these fields. He is the author of An Analysis of the Texas Mental Health Code (Hogg Foundation, 2d ed., 1994, 3d ed., 2010 (on line)) and co-author of Toward a Just and Effective Sentencing System (Praeger, 1977). He has been a visiting fellow of several colleges at Cambridge University, most recently as Quartercentary Fellow at Emmanuel College in 2000. In addition to traditional courses, Professor Churgin taught the mental health clinic 45 years.
Professor Churgin served on the Bar Admissions Committee of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association for a decade and has chaired and been a member of numerous accreditation site visit teams for the Section. He has been a member of the ABA Commission on Immigration for three years and its advisory committee for three years.