Barbara Holden-Smith is recognized for her groundbreaking work in Supreme Court history and currently teaches courses in conflicts, federal courts, civil procedure, and advanced civil procedure at Cornell Law School. She has focused her scholarship on the legal response to lynching and fugitive-slave cases, addressing significant historical injustices. Holden-Smith earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1984 after spending a year at an Illinois law firm and completing a clerkship with Hon. Ann C. Williams of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Throughout her career, she worked at the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter, where she spent years focusing on litigation, antitrust, and food and drug law before joining the Cornell Law School faculty in 1990. Her scholarly interests extend to global access to justice and the political and legal responses to historical injustices.