Elianna Marziani Nuzum is an Adjunct Professor and co-teaches Restorative Justice & the Criminal Justice System. She is an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, where she has litigated cases in both the criminal and civil divisions for over seven years. In the Major Crimes Unit, she has prosecuted crimes including kidnapping resulting in death, gun and drug trafficking, robbery, sexual exploitation of children, wire fraud, and identity theft, among others, from pretrial investigation through charging, trial or guilty plea, and sentencing. In her previous role in the Affirmative Civil Enforcement unit, Nuzum received the prestigious Director’s Award from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, in recognition of her work on a team of attorneys that achieved a record $4.9 billion settlement with the Royal Bank of Scotland in connection with a residential mortgage-backed securities investigation.
At the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Nuzum also serves as a co-coordinator for the District of Massachusetts Restorative Justice Program. In that capacity, she co-facilitates restorative justice circles that include criminal defendants, victims of crime, community members, and members of the criminal justice system; facilitates trauma reading and discussion groups for criminal defendants in the program; and facilitates individual restorative conferences between criminal defendants and those who have been harmed by their actions. She has received training in restorative conferencing and circles through the International Institute for Restorative Practices.
Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Nuzum was an Assistant District Attorney at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, where she prosecuted a broad range of felonies and misdemeanors through trial and sentencing. Later, in the Appeals Division, she briefed and argued cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Courts.
Nuzum also worked for seven years in private practice at a large law firm in Boston, where she represented both individuals and corporations in government investigations as well as in complex commercial litigation. She also conducted significant pro bono work, including successfully briefing and arguing to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court a first degree murder defendant’s appeal of the denial of his motion for new trial; representing an indigent man charged with a drug conspiracy in federal district court; and obtaining asylum for a woman facing removal proceedings before the United States Immigration Court in Boston.
Nuzum graduated summa cum laude from Washington and Lee University with a B.A., and received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
