Jess Hallam
Jess Hallam works in the Civil Defense Practice of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (NDS) as a Gallogly Family Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow. She advocates for clients with mental health disabilities and substance use disorders who face destabilizing and punitive civil consequences due to participating in diversion programs or treatment courts.
At Texas Law, Jess helped organize the 2020 GRITS conference, served as submissions editor of the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, and was a teaching assistant for the Race and the Law course and a Mithoff Pro Bono Scholar, leading the Expunction Project. She participated in the Civil Rights Clinic, Capital Punishment Clinic, and Criminal Defense Clinic, and interned with the Texas Fair Defense Project in Austin. She spent her summers with the ACLU Disability Rights Program in San Francisco and NDS’s Civil Defense Practice in New York City.