Jessica Berry will join Boston College Law School in January 2025 as Associate Clinical Professor where she will direct a clinic focused on representation and systemic reform that challenges harmful state intervention and promotes autonomy and opportunity in the lives of children, youth, and families. Berry comes to òòò½Ö±²¥ Law from the Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts (CLCM) where she has worked for 15 years representing youth ages 0-22 in state invention, education, and mental health-related matters and advocating to reform the state’s child welfare system. From 2017 until 2022 she also taught and supervised students in òòò½Ö±²¥ Law’s Juvenile Rights Advocacy Program (JRAP).
Berry earned her BA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and her JD and an MSW from the University of Michigan. Following law school, Berry clerked for the Honorable Nathaniel M. Gorton of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and then for the Honorable Diana Gribbon Motz of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She was then awarded a Skadden Fellowship, which began her work at CLCM.
