Vera Institute of Justice

Monica Bell is an associate professor of law at Yale Law School. Her areas of expertise include poverty and welfare law, criminal justice (especially policing and reentry), housing, race and the law, qualitative empirical methods, social inequality, and law and sociology.

Before joining the Yale Law School faculty in 2017, Bell was a Climenko Fellow & Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She previously served as a Liman Fellow at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, where she worked on matters related to cash assistance to families and disabled adults, child support, unemployment insurance, homeless services, healthcare, and other legal and policy issues affecting poor women and families. Born and raised in South Carolina's Upcountry, Bell holds degrees from Furman University (Truman Scholar), University College Dublin (Mitchell Scholar), Yale Law School, and Harvard University.