As a Supreme Court and Appellate Counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center, Ellen litigates strategic civil rights and criminal justice appeals in federal and state courts across the country. Ellen also supervises case teams and trains junior attorneys serving as legal fellows.
Prior to joining MacArthur, Ellen 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. Before that, Ellen was a Staff Attorney at Public Justice, where she litigated high-impact public interest appeals concerning access to justice, prisoners’ rights, workers’ rights, consumer protection, court secrecy, and gender-based violence. She developed an initiative to tackle the legal barriers that deny incarcerated people access to justice and spoke at state and national conferences on the topic of holding corporations in the prison-industrial complex accountable.
Ellen served as a law clerk to Judge Albert Diaz on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Judge John D. Bates on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Ellen earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from Macalester College.