Rachel Kennedy

Rachel Kennedy is a graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in History and minored in African American Studies. After graduation, she worked at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services in Manhattan, NY. She spent each day connecting clients placed on an alternative to bail program with social services. The pride she felt working in criminal legal reform began to wane when she saw that the program’s requirements prevented clients from achieving true stability and re-integration into the community.  Her clients taught her that any involvement in the criminal legal system seeks to destabilize people, and as a result, destabilizes their families and communities. This lesson drove Rachel to apply to law school to study the criminal legal system, movement lawyering, and prison abolition. At HLS, she is the community director of Harvard Defenders, a student practice organization providing representation to indigent clients at show-cause hearings.  She spent her 1L summer at the Family Justice Law Center, an impact litigation organization protecting families’ rights against the family regulation system. She is looking forward to spending her 2L summer at the Public Defender Service of the District of Columbia (PDSDC).