Camille Fenton

With the goal of becoming a public defender, nearly all of my legal experience prior to and during law school was on the criminal side of things. But the more I worked on criminal justice issues, the more I saw how inextricably intertwined civil rights issues are with the criminal justice system. It’s for this reason that participating in the Civil Rights Clinic was such an invaluable experience for me. Taking a deep dive into a civil rights suit resulting from a jail death exposed me to the complexities of civil litigation in federal court and the way in which the process can provide meaningful relief to the family of the deceased, regardless of the ultimate settlement. In addition, our coursework, and my work on a report advocating for the establishment of a public defender office in Travis County, have given me the tools to think about ways to address the larger, systemic issues in our criminal justice system.