Anna E. Carpenter portrait
  • Professor of Law and Special Advisor to the President, College Of Law

Research Summary

Professor Carpenter’s scholarship includes empirical and theoretical work on state civil courts and judges, access to justice, legal regulatory innovation, and legal paraprofessionals. She has also written on legal education and clinical pedagogy. Her excellence in scholarship has been recognized by the Stephen Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award, the Bellow Scholar award, the Junior Scholars Public Law Workshop, and the New Voices in Civil Justice Workshop.

Education

  • B.A., Sociology, Willamette University
  • J.D., Law, Georgetown University Law Center
  • L.L.M., Advocacy, Georgetown University Law Center

Biography

Anna E. Carpenter is Professor of Law and Justice Lab Director at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. Currently, she serves as Special Advisor to the President of the University of Utah. Previously, she was Director of Clinical Programs at S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Professor Carpenter’s scholarship includes empirical and theoretical work on state civil courts and judges, access to justice, the relationship between law, civil courts, and structural inequality, legal regulatory innovation, and legal paraprofessionals. She has also written on legal education and clinical pedagogy. For excellence in scholarship, she received the Stephen Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award and was named a Bellow Scholar by the Association of American Law Schools’ Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest. Her papers have been selected for the Junior Scholars Public Law Workshop and the New Voices in Civil Justice Workshop.

Professor Carpenter is the founder and director of Justice Lab, a clinical course where students help community organizations solve legal and policy problems and advocate for systemic change. For her leadership in legal services and legal education innovation, she received the inaugural Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award from the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. 

Professor Carpenter’s previous appointments include Associate Clinical Professor of Law at The University of Tulsa College of Law and Clinical Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. She was also a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow.

Before her academic career, Professor Carpenter worked as a legal services lawyer representing low-income people in civil and immigration matters and as a federal policy analyst focused on domestic violence and poverty. She has a J.D. and LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Willamette University.