alec.karakatsanis

Alec graduated from Yale College in 2005 with a degree in Ethics, Politics, & Economics and Harvard Law School in 2008, where he was a Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Before co-founding Equal Justice Under Law, Alec was an attorney with the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he litigated complex criminal law issues and bigger-picture civil rights cases in federal and D.C. trial and appellate courts. Prior to PDS, Alec was a federal public defender in Alabama, representing indigent people accused of federal crimes. Alec is interested in ending mass incarceration, drug crimes, surveillance, the death penalty, immigration laws, war, and inequality. He is the author of The Human Lawyer, 34 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 563 (2010); Protecting Corporations Instead of the Poor, 121 Harv. L. Rev. 275 (2007); and Civil Disobedience: The Role of Judges, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 1988 (2007). Alec also teaches a high school class on mass incarceration, civil rights, and safe interaction with the police in the D.C. public schools, helps lead a community organizing effort against racial profiling and police misconduct in the District of Columbia, and is a mentor in the Big Brother/Big Sister program. He also spends his time playing the piano, making unskilled paintings, and playing soccer.