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Guest Speakers

Colleen F. Shanahan is the Associate Clinical Professor of Law at the Columbia University Law School where she directs the Community Advocacy Lab. Her research focuses on access to justice, empirical studies of civil courts, and the intersection of civil and criminal law including the use of fines and fees in justice systems. She is recognized nationally for her innovative approach to clinical pedagogy as both a teacher and a scholar. 

She was named a Bellow Scholar for her empirical access to justice scholarship and currently co-chairs the Bellow Scholar Program. Professor Shanahan was previously on the faculty at Temple University Beasley School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center.

Shanahan has both public and private sector experience. After graduating from the Law School, as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, she clerked for Judge Michael Baylson on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge Jane R. Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. She then worked as a litigator for Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. and Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller in Philadelphia.

Anna E. Carpenter is Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. Currently, she is serving in the Office of the President at the University of Utah where she provides leadership on higher education innovation. Previously, she was Director of Clinical Programs at S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Professor Carpenter’s includes empirical and theoretical work on state civil courts and judges, access to justice, legal regulatory innovation, and legal paraprofessional licensing. She also writes on legal education and clinical pedagogy.

Professor Carpenter is the founder and director of , a clinical course where students help community organizations solve legal and policy problems and advocate for systemic change. She is a Resident Scholar at the, a research collaborative focused on legal innovation. For her work on innovation in legal services and legal education, she was recognized with the inaugural by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. For her empirical research on access to justice, she was named a by the Association of American Law Schools’ Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest. Her papers have been selected for the Junior Scholars Public Law Workshop and the New Voices in Civil Justice Workshop.

Professor Carpenter’s previous appointments include Associate Clinical Professor of Law at The University of Tulsa College of Law, and Clinical Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. She was also a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow.

Before her academic career, Professor Carpenter worked as a legal services lawyer representing low-income people in civil and immigration matters and as a federal policy analyst focused on domestic violence and poverty. She has a B.A. from Willamette University and a J.D. and LL.M in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center.

Alyx Mark is an Assistant Professor of Government at in Middletown, CT and an Affiliated Scholar of the , at Monash University, and the at the University of Utah.

Professor Mark’s research and teaching interests include: the American separation of powers system, access to justice, and Supreme Court decision-making. Her research agenda focuses on how institutions empower and constrain legal elites, such as lawyers, judges, and lawmakers, as well as the consequences of institutional design decisions for access to justice.

Her research has received the support of the National Science Foundation, the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., and The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate. Her work appears in, or is forthcoming in the Hastings Law Review, Law and Social Inquiry, Law and Society Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Law and Courts, and the Wisconsin Law Review, among other outlets.

Professor Mark received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University in 2015 and her B.A. from Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville in 2008. She is currently an Affiliated Scholar at the American Bar Foundation. Prior to joining the faculty at Wesleyan, she was an Assistant Professor at North Central College in Naperville, IL.

Moderator

Jason Tashea is a member of LSC's Emerging Leaders Council and writes about the intersection of technology, policy, and law. He is also the editor of the JusticeTech Download newsletter.