Educator

Shaping the next generation
of public interest lawyers.

Valena Beety has taught criminal law, evidence, and forensic justice at three law schools for over a decade. Her classroom is an extension of her advocacy — and her students go on to do the work.

Curriculum Vitae

2023 – Present

Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law

Indiana University Maurer School of Law

2019 – 2023

Professor of Law / Affiliated Faculty, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

2017 – 2019

Professor of Law (tenured) / Adjunct, Forensic & Investigative Sciences

West Virginia University

2012 – 2017

Associate Professor of Law

West Virginia University

University of Chicago Law School, J.D.

University of Chicago, the College, B.A. — Anthropology, with Honors

Trustees’ Teaching Award (2025)

Leonard D. Fromm Public Interest Faculty/Staff Award (2025)

Founder and Co-Director, LL.M. in Forensic Justice Online (2013–2016)

WVU College of Law Significant Scholarship Award (2016)

West Virginia Law Review Faculty Member of the Year Award (2016)

WV Public Defender Services John A. “Jack” Rogers Award for Outstanding Leadership in Public Service, awarded to West Virginia Innocence Project (2019)

Big XII Faculty Fellow, University of Texas School of Law (2013)

Clerkship — The Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

Clerkship — The Hon. Chief Judge James G. Carr, Northern District of Ohio
Fulbright Scholar, France