Public Interest Lawyering in the Appellate Courts

Wondering if you can have a rewarding public interest career as an appellate lawyer? Think you might enjoy appellate practice, but are not actually sure what it entails? Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Christine Monta, who has spent her career litigating civil rights and criminal justice issues in appellate courts from three different perspectives–as a D.C. public defender, a DOJ civil rights attorney, and a strategic impact litigator with the MacArthur Justice Center. Christine will discuss her path to appellate public interest practice and why she found it appealing (pun intended!); demystify the day-to-day life of an appellate lawyer; compare and contrast the roles she’s held across various metrics (office culture, connection to clients, scope of work and impact, autonomy vs. bureaucracy, etc.); and share insights she’s learned along the way.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below. Open only to the HLS community.

Christine Monta is a Supreme Court & Appellate Counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center (MJC) in Washington, D.C. There she briefs and argues important civil rights and criminal justice appeals in federal and state courts around the country, on issues including the felony murder rule, extreme sentencing, conditions of confinement, excessive force, qualified immunity, and incarcerated persons’ access to courts. Christine also supervises and mentors junior attorneys and law student interns on briefing, oral argument, and career paths. Prior to joining MJC, Christine was a Senior Attorney in the Appellate Section of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where she worked to enforce the nation’s civil rights laws in federal and state appellate courts across two presidential administrations. Christine’s docket at Civil Rights covered a wide range of issues, including voting rights, sex discrimination, disability discrimination, juvenile justice, police and correction officer misconduct, servicemember rights, and access to justice. Christine also served as an Investigative Counsel in the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, working to improve Department operations and hold high-level government officials accountable for misconduct and abuses of power. Christine started her legal career as an appellate attorney at the D.C. Public Defender Service, where she briefed and argued dozens of appeals on behalf of accused and incarcerated persons. Christine clerked on the Ninth Circuit following her graduation from Harvard Law School.

If you or an event participant requires disability-related accommodations, please contact HLS Accessibility Services at accessibility@law.harvard.edu two weeks in advance of the event.