I am an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an Access to Justice Faculty Scholar at the American Bar Foundation. I work at the intersection of law and social sciences using quantitative and qualitative methods and legal analysis, and was named a Mellon Emerging Faculty Leader in 2020.
My research examines how inequality is influenced by "legal consciousness"--how people think about the law. What experiences shape people's willingness to use a legal aid office? To sue a neighbor? To refuse a police search? How do race and class manifest in people's interactions with the legal system? My investigation of the relationship between access to justice and legal consciousness is supported by the National Science Foundation and the ABF.
I also spend a lot of time thinking about parole hearings: which factors influence an inmate's odds of receiving a grant, including indirect racial effects; how parole commissioners make sense of amorphous sociolegal concepts such as "indicia of remorse;" and the broader implications of my findings for racial disparities in mass incarceration.
Additionally, I have a strong sociological interest in the legal profession, specifically legal education, and hope to improve law schools as institutions by developing a better empirical understanding of law school's social structure. My book, How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School (Stanford University Press, 2018) draws on interviews and surveys of more than 1100 law students from over 100 law schools. I'm working on multiple articles from a new longitudinal study in which I follow 53 law students over the course of their 1L year.
My work appears in Law & Society Review, Social Forces, California Law Review, Harvard Law Review, and other journals, and has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Washington State Supreme Court. I have worked in a number of legal settings, including the Federal Defender's Office for the Northern District of California, the San Joaquin DA's Office, and the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. I am very involved in the Law & Society Association, and am an Associate Editor of Law & Society Review.
My research examines how inequality is influenced by "legal consciousness"--how people think about the law. What experiences shape people's willingness to use a legal aid office? To sue a neighbor? To refuse a police search? How do race and class manifest in people's interactions with the legal system? My investigation of the relationship between access to justice and legal consciousness is supported by the National Science Foundation and the ABF.
I also spend a lot of time thinking about parole hearings: which factors influence an inmate's odds of receiving a grant, including indirect racial effects; how parole commissioners make sense of amorphous sociolegal concepts such as "indicia of remorse;" and the broader implications of my findings for racial disparities in mass incarceration.
Additionally, I have a strong sociological interest in the legal profession, specifically legal education, and hope to improve law schools as institutions by developing a better empirical understanding of law school's social structure. My book, How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School (Stanford University Press, 2018) draws on interviews and surveys of more than 1100 law students from over 100 law schools. I'm working on multiple articles from a new longitudinal study in which I follow 53 law students over the course of their 1L year.
My work appears in Law & Society Review, Social Forces, California Law Review, Harvard Law Review, and other journals, and has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Washington State Supreme Court. I have worked in a number of legal settings, including the Federal Defender's Office for the Northern District of California, the San Joaquin DA's Office, and the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. I am very involved in the Law & Society Association, and am an Associate Editor of Law & Society Review.