Dr. Anna B. Bosch is an Affiliate Assistant Professor and the Director of UW Law’s Visiting Scholars Program, which hosts distinguished scholars and international legal practitioners from around the world. Visiting Scholars – who include judges, prosecutors, government officials, academics, and practicing attorneys – conduct comparative research at the law school on behalf of their employers, often toward informing planned justice sector reforms in the Scholars’ home countries. Dr. Bosch provides research mentorship and academic advising for the Visiting Scholars as well as the law school’s PhD students, and convenes the Visiting Scholars Roundtable Lecture Series, a monthly gathering and sharing of research and expertise of current Visiting Scholars and PhDs. Dr. Bosch also teaches a class on Rule of Law.
Dr. Bosch began her 20-year legal career as a deputy prosecuting attorney for the Criminal Division of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, where she represented the State of Washington in all stages of the criminal process – from pre-trials to appeals and post-conviction hearings – for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to Class A felonies. She continues to take an active interest in local criminal trials, leading Visiting Scholars on quarterly trips to observe state and federal court proceedings and meet with local legal practitioners.
After first earning an LLM in Sustainable International Development at UW Law, Dr. Bosch went on to complete her PhD in Law in 2016 based on a qualitative empirical study of foreign-local dynamics impacting the design and implementation of capacity-building justice sector reforms in Indonesia. A key finding which guides her current work is the understanding that building legal literacy and capacity among those most impacted is key to implementation, and more effectively transitions justice sector reforms from being simply ‘on the books’ and into the real world. During her time at UW Law, Dr. Bosch has taught classes on Law Reform in Transition Economies, Theories and Tools for Combatting Corruption and Comparative Legal Reasoning.
Dr. Bosch also serves as Legal Director for the non-profit Living with Conviction, a partnership between formerly incarcerated individuals and their legal allies working toward an end to onerous legal financial obligations (LFOs), which are imposed by a court at criminal sentencing hearings. In this role, she co-directs Living with Conviction’s legal empowerment program, an access-to-justice effort launched in 2019 to fully realize reforms enacted by the Washington State legislature in 2018. Living with Conviction utilizes technology, multi-media storytelling, legal empowerment, and participatory research and advocacy methods toward realizing its mission.