August Criminal Law Round-up
On feminism and criminal defence
I recently met with a law student who was interested in doing an internship with me. As we finished our conversation, she expressed her excitement about the opportunity to work with a feminist criminal defence lawyer. Her eyes sparkled as she said this, as if she had spotted some sort of elusive rainbow unicorn. I sort of shrugged it off at the time, but the comment stuck with me. I realize that when I finished law school and was grappling with how to merge my own goals of social justice with actually paying my bills, that I had not yet identified any feminist practitioners to look to as role models. That being said, I would count many of my own colleagues as feminists, whether they self-identify or not. And while merging feminist analysis with criminal defence work certainly comes with its own set of challenges, I've found that it has strengthened my practice.
