Jesse McGleughlin L’20

Jesse McGleughlin advocates for youth and family justice, racial and economic equity, and a world without prisons.

She serves as a law clerk to the Honorable Theodore McKee, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Previously, she worked as a law clerk for the Honorable Gerald McHugh, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Jesse began her legal career as a Law Fellow at the Southern Center for Human Rights, where she successfully challenged the shackling and solitary confinement of pregnant and postpartum people in Georgia prisons, litigated inhumane prison conditions, and represented individuals in state post-conviction proceedings. At Penn Carey Law, Jesse was a Toll Public Interest Scholar. She co-directed the Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project and participated in the Child Advocacy Clinic and inaugural Appellate Advocacy Clinic. Jesse interned with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Still She Rises, the Bronx Defenders, and the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Prior to law school, Jesse was a National Training Manager at Community Connections for Youth, where she campaigned for community-based alternatives to youth incarceration. As a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa, Jesse developed an oral history course for high school students on legacies of apartheid in the Kayamandi Township and advocated for the decriminalization of sex work with Sonke Gender Justice. Jesse earned her BA magna cum laude in Africana Studies from Brown University.

In Fall 2023, Jesse McGleughlin will join the Bronx Defenders’ Family Defense Practice as Policy Counsel, where she will divide her time between representing parents in the family regulation system and developing and advocating for policy reform.