Lauren Sudeall has been appointed to the David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law. Her appointment was announced by Chris Guthrie, Dean and John Wade-Kent Syverud Professor of Law.
The David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair of Law was endowed in honor of David Daniels Allen, BA’58, a founding partner of Reynolds Allen & Cook in Houston, after his untimely death in 1980 at the height of his legal career. A group of friends and Vanderbilt alumni, led by a close friend of Allen’s father, George Brown, established the chair with contributions from the Brown Foundation; Allen’s widow, Beth Allen Blakemore; his father, Herbert Allen; Milton Underwood ’28; Cameron Iron Works; and J. Hicks Lanier, BA’62.
“Through research, practice, and leadership, Lauren is a powerful and effective advocate for access to justice. The generosity of the group who supports this chair – and four others – ensures the necessary support to advance her efforts,” said Dean Guthrie.
Sudeall serves as director of the Vanderbilt Access to Justice initiative. Her scholarship currently focuses on access to civil and criminal courts, and how lower-income individuals engage with the legal system, either with a lawyer or on their own. Earlier work examined the relationship between rights and identity and the intersection of constitutional law and criminal procedure. Her scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, California Law Review, Harvard Law Review, and Yale Law Journal Forum, among other publications.
Sudeall graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and received her B.A. with distinction from Yale University. Prior to joining the academy, she clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court of the United States. She also worked at the Southern Center for Human Rights, representing indigent capital clients in Alabama and Georgia and litigated civil claims regarding the right to counsel.
Lauren Sudeall is a member of the American Law Institute and currently serves as an Associate Reporter for Principles of the Law, High-Volume Civil Adjudication. She has also served on the Southern Center’s board of directors, the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid & Indigent Defendants, the Indigent Defense Committee of the State Bar of Georgia, and as chair of the AALS Section on Constitutional Law.
