Brent E. Newton practices civil, criminal, and immigration law at all levels of the state and federal court systems.  From 2009 until early 2019, he was the Deputy Director of the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, D.C. Before working with the Commission, he was a public defender for nearly two decades. After graduating from Columbia University School of Law and clerking for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, he represented numerous death row inmates in Texas and Florida. Thereafter, he was an assistant federal public defender in Houston, Texas, where he handled both trials and appeals, including arguing a case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 2008. While serving as a public defender, he also taught several courses as an adjunct professor of law and visiting professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. In addition to serving as an adjunct faculty member at WCL, he also is an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University Law Center and professor from practice at Penn State-Dickinson Law. He is the author of three books and many law review articles and book chapters. He was elected to the American Law Institute in 2010.