Anna E. Carpenter

Anna E. Carpenter is Professor of Law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.

Currently, she is serving in the Office of the President at the University of Utah where she provides leadership on higher education innovation. 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, legal regulatory innovation, and legal paraprofessional licensing. She also writes on legal education and clinical pedagogy.

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. She is a Resident Scholar at the Law of Law Center, a research collaborative focused on legal innovation. For her work on innovation in legal services and legal education, she was recognized with the inaugural Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. For her empirical research on access to justice, she 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’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 B.A. from Willamette University and a J.D. and LL.M in Advocacy from Georgetown University Law Center.