Afton M. Templin
Adjunct Professor of Law
Education
Northeastern University School of Law, JD 1996.
Bio
Afton M. Templin (she/her) is currently director of juvenile appeals at the youth advocacy division at the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), where she is responsible for overseeing a panel of private attorneys representing youth on appeal. She also serves as the CPCS representative on the Supreme Judicial Court’s Standing Advisory Committee on the Rules of Appellate Procedure. Prior to joining YAD, she was a sole practitioner focused on juvenile delinquency/youthful offender, criminal defense, family law and child welfare appeals.
Professor Templin has also served as deputy general counsel to the Massachusetts Parole Board and as an assistant district attorney in the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office. She has briefed and argued numerous criminal and civil appeals, including homicides, sexual assaults and grand jury matters, and has filed numerous amicus briefs with the Supreme Judicial Court.
Professor Templin co-authored the chapter “Pardons and Commutations” in Crime and Consequence: The Collateral Effects of Criminal Conduct (MCLE 2023) and “Youth Matters: Resentencing and Parole after Commonwealth v. Mattis” in the Spring 2024 volume of the Boston Bar Journal. She served as law clerk to the Justices of the Superior Court and to the Honorable Francis X. Spina (ret.), then of the Appeals Court. She has presented at numerous seminars on topics including search and seizure, appellate practice and clemency. She has taught legal skills sections in Appellate Advocacy and Criminal Law at the UMass School of Law (then Southern New England School of Law). Professor Templin graduated from Mount Holyoke College and Northeastern University School of Law '96.
