Cait Clarke

Cait Clarke has joined the National Legal Aid & Defender Association's Defender Legal Services Division as Director of the National Defender Leadership Institute, effective March 1, 2002. Cait has led the Institute since its inception in 2001, but on a consultant basis. She is also a Research Fellow with the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management in Cambridge, Massachussetts. While in residence at Harvard, she managed a three-year Bureau of Justice Assistance grant to sponsor the Executive Session on Public Defense (ESPD), which was aimed at improving indigent defense systems in the American criminal justice system. As a Research Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer at the Kennedy School she taught a community justice course that explored current public policy and legal issues in criminal justice. In addition, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Graduate Program at Harvard Law School. There she supervised SJD candidates in developing doctoral research plans. Cait helped develop the law school's doctoral program (the largest in the country), established regular colloquia, and taught select reading seminars for the growing number of Harvard Law School doctoral candidates.

Cait's broad experience has included an Associate Professorship of Law at the Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, a Clinical Instructor in the Criminal Justice Clinic at the Georgetown University Law Center, and law clerk to the Honorable John A. Terry of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Cait has practiced and taught law abroad in various capacities over the past ten years. She studied at Tokyo University and worked in a Japanese law firm. She has taught criminal law and constitutional in law in Cuernavaca, Mexico; Moscow, Russia; and, Budapest, Hungary

Cait received her B.S. in Business Administration from the Villanova University School of Commerce and Finance; her JD from Catholic University's Columbus School of Law where she was Editor in Chief of the Law Review; and her LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center. At Georgetown she was awarded one of four E. Barrett Prettyman Law Fellowships in the Criminal Justice Clinic. In 1998, Cait received her S.J.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science) from Harvard Law School, completing her dissertation: "From Rebellious Lawyers to Community Defenders: Reconceptualizing the Right to Counsel for the Indigent in South Africa and the United States." Cait has published numerous articles on criminal justice topics and community-oriented public defense programs. Her current research projects focus on sentencing advocacy, the criminalization of mental illness, and problem-solving lawyering.

Cait can be reached at c.clarke@nlada.org

Cait Clarke's Publications

Chapters and Articles

"Problem-Solving Defenders in the Community: Expanding the Institutional Boundaries of Providing Counsel to the Poor." Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics (forthcoming).

"Bolder Management for Public Defense: Leadership in Three Dimensions," co-authored with Christopher Stone (November 2001).

"Community-Oriented Defenders." In Community-Oriented Lawyering: An Emerging Approach to Legal Practice (forthcoming).

"Community Defenders in the 21st Century: Building on a Tradition of Problem-Solving for Clients, Families and Needy Communities." United States Attorneys' Bulletin 49, no.1 (January 2001).

"Executive Summary." In Redefining Leadership for Equal Justice, Report of the National Symposium on Indigent Defense 2000, Bureau of Justice Assistance (2000).

"Message in a Bottle for Unknowing Defenders: Strategic Plea Negotiations Persist in South African Criminal Courts." The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 32 (1999).

"From CrinINet to Cyber-Perp: Toward an Inclusive Approach to Policing the Evolving Criminal Mens Rea on the Internet." Oregon Law Review 75 (1996).

"Constitutional Interpretivism and Criminal Procedure in the New Russian Federation Constitution." In Government Structures in the U.S.A. and the Sovereign States of the Former U.S.S.R., ed. James E. Hickey, Jr. and Alexej Ugrinsky. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1996.

"Victim's Voices and Constitutional Quandaries: Life After Payne v. Tennessee." Co-authored with Thomas Block. St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary (Symposium on Victims' Rights) 8 (1992).

"The Missed Manners in Courtroom Decorum." Maryland Law Review 50 (1991).

"Fifth Circuit Symposium: Criminal Law and Procedure." Loyola Law Review 36 (1990).

"Don't Tear It Down v. Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation: a Statutory Interpretation Sanctions the Use of the Wrecking Ball." Catholic University Law Review 34 (1985).

"Survey of the District of Columbia Law Revision Commission." Catholic University Law Review 34 (1985).

Book Reviews

Review of Hatchard et al, Comparative Criminal Procedure (1996). In European Journal of International Law 10 (1999).

Review of Mary Daly and Roger Goebel (eds), Rights, Liability and Ethics in International Legal Practice (1994). In European Journal of International Law 9 (1998).

Review of Ian Loveland (ed.), A Special Relationship? American Influences on Public Law in the UK (1995). In European Journal of International Law 9 (1998).

Review of Andreas Lowenfeld, International Litigation and the Quest for Reasonableness: Essays in Private International Law (1996). In European Journal of International Law 8 (1997).

Review of Edward de Grazia, Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius (1992). Loyola Law Review 8 (1992).

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