Susan N. Herman was elected President of the American Civil Liberties Union in October 2008, after having served as a member of the ACLU Board of Directors and Executive Committee, and as General Counsel.

She holds a chair as Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she currently teaches courses in Criminal Procedure and Constitutional Law, and seminars on Law and Literature, and Terrorism and Civil Liberties. She writes extensively on constitutional, criminal procedure, and national security topics for scholarly and other publications, ranging from law reviews and books to periodicals and on-line publications. Her most recent book, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy (Oxford University Press 2011), winner of the 2012 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize, was published in an updated paperback edition in March 2014.

Herman has discussed constitutional law issues on radio, including a variety of NPR shows, and on television, including programs on PBS, CSPAN, NBC, MSNBC, and a series of appearances on the Today in New York show. In addition, she has been a frequent speaker at academic conferences and continuing legal education events organized by groups such as the Federal Judicial Center and the American Bar Association, lecturing and conducting workshops for various groups of judges and lawyers, and at non-legal events, including speeches at the U.S. Army War College and many schools and universities. She has also participated in Supreme Court litigation, writing and collaborating on amicus curiae briefs for the ACLU on a range of constitutional criminal procedure issues, including Riley v. California, the recent case establishing that cell phones may not be searched without a search warrant.

Herman received a B.A. from Barnard College as a philosophy major, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Note and Comment Editor on the N.Y.U. Law Review. Before entering teaching, Professor Herman was Pro Se Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Staff Attorney and then Associate Director of Prisoners' Legal Services of New York.

In her spare time, she sings choral repertory with the Riverside Choral Society.