Kate’s Winning Essay:
I believe that EVERYONE has a right to quality legal representation. I also believe that fighting to minimize the number of people who experience the violent, disruptive, and traumatic prison complex is the first step in a much larger conversation about true community justice. The negative effects of the prison-industrial-complex are especially detrimental to Black people, Immigrants, Indigenous people, Queer people, people experiencing homelessness, and people living in poverty.
As a rental assistance coordinator and street outreach worker, I saw just how detrimental felony chargers were for someone trying to get into housing. I also saw how predatory the law enforcement system was. I watched how police followed the EMS to overdose emergencies, and rather than prioritizing someone’s health and safety, they would escalate tensions with anxious onlookers. I watched as they threatened to arrest someone for throwing a small piece of paper on the ground. For these reasons, I am pursuing a career in criminal legal defense.
I am also interested in engaging with “crimmigration” cases, as I am passionate about immigration and asylum protections. I am poised to be a strong advocate in this area, as I have an educational, practical and legal background in immigration advocacy, and a legal background in criminal defense work as well.
I have studied criminal law as well as juvenile law and policy. I participated in my school’s Criminal Juvenile Defense Clinic, where I had the opportunity to represent clients of all ages, in a variety of cases, ranging from traffic violations, to expungements, to felony charges. I look forward to participating in another clinic this academic year of 2024-2025. In the Federal Commutations clinic, I again, will have the opportunity to represent clients, federal inmates, seeking pardons or commutations of their sentences.
At the core of the legal practice that I am pursuing, there must be a foundation of anti-racism and trauma-centered care. I found exactly that when I worked at the Legal Rights Center in the summer of 2023. There, I prepped expungement cases, researched the Minnesota bail system, translated between defense attorneys and their Spanish-speaking clients, and negotiated deals with prosecutors on behalf of defendants.
I would be honored to continue this work as a public defender. I aim to build more experience and skills to eventually become an appellate attorney, and/or to merge my legal practices with research and policy work. Particularly, I hope to use the knowledge I gain throughout this career, to engage in and build up community restorative justice practices.
This scholarship would relieve a huge financial burden, as I carefully budget my way through law school. I have worked in non-profits my whole life, doing unpaid internships and earning lower-than-normal wages in my jobs. I will enter the legal profession having paid the same expenses as my classmates, while earning a fraction of that income, as a public defender. Any financial assistance would help offset the ongoing financial burden.
Thank you for your consideration,
Kate Denney
