I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and lived there (except for one all too brief year at boarding school in Memphis) until I went to college at Emory University in Atlanta. After graduation, I moved north to Washington, D.C., to attend Washington College of Law, American University. The year following, I was a fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Interest Representation, where I received an LLM.

I never left D.C., much to my surprise, and, in between raising four children and writing books, I have practiced public interest law and corporate law, I have prosecuted anti-trust and criminal cases, and I have represented several white collar criminal defendants facing politically motivated charges in federal court. Most recently, I have taught a variety of courses at the Washington College of Law, including legal writing, externship seminar, civil practice clinic, and disability rights clinic. For several years I represented asylum and immigration clients on behalf of CMHS, the Center for Multicultural Human Services.  Currently, I am teaching in the externship program and in the winter semester will be a Practitioner-in-Residence in the General Practice Clinic at WCL.