Major(s): English
What is your current role? What was your journey in arriving there?
My role is (which I have held since 2009) to lead the support and coordination of efforts around the country (local, state, federal) to create a right to free counsel for civil cases that implicate basic human needs, such as eviction, domestic violence, child custody, and civil incarceration. This work involves providing technical assistance to campaigns to enact a statutory right to counsel as well as to litigation seeking to establish a constitutional right to counsel. I also assist with social science research demonstrating the impact of providing counsel, talk to national and local media, publish scholarly articles, and present at events around the country.
Ever since going to Wesleyan I’ve wanted to be engaged in antipoverty work, with a particular interest in housing issues stimulated by seeing a lot of homelessness in New York growing up. After trying a Masters in Public Policy I realized that lawyers had powerful tools at their disposal that could help effect policy change, which led me to law school. But after law school, my experience working to enforce the federal Fair Housing Act led me to realize how difficult it was for lawyers to prevail in such cases, much less unrepresented laypeople. And like many Americans I was shocked to discover you could even go to jail without a right to lawyer if the case was classified as “civil”. So when the opportunity came up to coordinate a national effort to fix that problem, I jumped at the opportunity.
What do you enjoy about your work? What challenges does your industry currently face?
My work has the potential for massive impact: when a city or state enacts a right to counsel policy, or a court recognizes a constitutional right, thousands of people gain a resource that can help them avoid losing their children, becoming homeless, getting incarcerated, and in the case of matters like domestic violence, losing their life. And when litigants have lawyers, the results are dramatically different: for instance, 90% or more of tenants with counsel avoid being “disruptively displaced” (i.e. forced out by the sheriff with all their belongs put on the street). I also like that my role allows me to do a lot of different tasks: meet with community-based advocates one day and policymakers the next, dive into social science research so that I can translate it for our larger community, do interviews, and so on. And I like that I get to work in a lot of different subject areas that interest me, not just housing.
Prior to 2025, one of the biggest challenges we faced is that even when we win a right to counsel and expand representation, many legal aid programs are unable to find enough law graduates willing to take such positions. It also can be challenging to convince policymakers or courts that vulnerable populations (such as people with mental disabilities or children) should have a lawyer that does what the person or child wants, as opposed to what the lawyer thinks is best. And in 2025, cities and states may have to use their own revenue to replace funding previously provided by the federal government (such as Medicaid), and if so, their ability to pay for a right to counsel will be compromised.
How did your time at Wesleyan influence your career choice/journey?
During my orientation week at Wesleyan, all students filled out a worksheet that helped them identify areas where they might have privilege. I was aware of some of these areas, but not all of them, and checking so many boxes on the sheet made me acutely aware of the responsibility I had to acknowledge this privilege and use it as best as possible to help others. I also became politically aware for the first time, which further shaped my desire to effect change. And my work with Students for Financially Accessible Education and the school’s Financial Aid Oversight Committee helped me see firsthand how even a small shortage of money (such as students who were short a few hundred dollars for necessary school materials)
could cause massive impacts to a person’s life, a lesson I continued to see later in life when I saw tenants lose their homes for less than $100 owed.
Do you have any advice for students thinking about entering your industry?
I strongly urge students to take a break between college and law school, because the law you learn makes much more sense if you have some real-world experience to contextualize it. I also say not to worry if you don’t know exactly what you’ll do with your law degree when you reach your 3rd year: the plans I had made fell apart right before I graduated, and yet I wound up taking a different path that has led me to my current position.
Updated February 7, 2025
