Heidi Kitrosser is a William W. Gurley Professor of Law at Northwestern University. Kitrosser is an expert on the constitutional law of federal government secrecy and on separation of powers and free speech law more broadly. She has written, spoken, and consulted widely on these topics. Her book, Reclaiming Accountability: Transparency, Executive Power, and the U.S. Constitution, was published in 2015 by the University of Chicago Press. It was awarded the 2014 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law / Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. Kitrosser’s articles have appeared in many venues, including Supreme Court Review, Georgetown Law Journal, UCLA Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary. In 2017, she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to begin work on a book project on U.S. government whistleblowers.

Kitrosser is on the steering committee of a new initiative – the Free Expression Legal Network (FELN) spearheaded by Yale’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic and the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press. FELN is a network of law school clinics, academics, and practitioners (including nonprofits) across the country that seeks to promote and protect free speech, free press, and the flow of information.

Kitrosser graduated from UCLA in 1992, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with a BA in political science. She received her JD degree from Yale Law School in 1996. During her third year at Yale, she won the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for best oral argument in the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals.

Following law school, she clerked for Judge William Rea on the District Court for the Central District of California and for Judge Judith Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She also worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C., office of Jenner & Block.