Directories

Lauren Sudeall Lucas

Lauren Sudeall Lucas, assistant professor of law, teaches Constitutional Law and Capital Punishment. Her scholarly work to date has touched on the intersection of constitutional law and criminal procedure, with a focus on structural indigent defense reform, and the relationship between rights and identity. Other research interests include the constitutional treatment of multiracial and economically and politically marginalized populations. Her recent scholarship has appeared or will appear in the California Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and the Federal Sentencing Reporter, among other publications. 

Before joining the academy, Professor Lucas served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court of the United States. She then worked at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, first as a Soros Justice Fellow and later as a staff attorney. At the Center, she represented indigent capital clients in Georgia and Alabama and litigated civil claims regarding constitutional violations within the criminal justice system, based primarily on the right to counsel. She currently serves on the Center's board of directors and on the Indigent Defense Committee of the State Bar of Georgia.

Professor Lucas graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she served as treasurer of the Harvard Law Review. She received her B.A. with distinction from Yale University. 

During her time in practice, Professor Lucas received the Anti-Defamation League’s Stuart Eizenstat Young Lawyer Award and was named by the Fulton County Daily Report as one of 10 “On the Rise” Georgia lawyers under 40. In 2011, she was recognized as one of National Law Journal’s Minority 40 Under 40.