Megan Annitto
Biography
As the Director of the Center for Law and Public Service, Megan directs and teaches the Public Service Externship Program, promotes public interest law among the students, and coordinates student pro bono activities.
Before coming to the College of Law, Megan’s practice focused on children and adolescents living in poverty, particularly young females in the juvenile justice system. As a public defender for juveniles at the Legal Aid Society of New York, Megan represented numerous youth and advocated for community based alternatives to detention. Later, as a legislative attorney, Megan continued to focus on improving conditions for vulnerable youth, highlighting the needs for services and awareness about the problems of runaway and homeless youth. Building on her experience, her recent forthcoming article discusses the prevalence of commercial sexual exploitation of youth and their prosecution, advocating for a more legally coherent and rational approach.
Megan served as a law clerk to Judge Anne E. Thomspon, United States District Court in the District of New Jersey. Following her clerkship, she worked at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University before becoming a public defender. Megan received her J.D. and Master of Social Work from the Catholic University of America where she graduated magna cum laude. She received a B.A. from Boston College.
She is a Board Member of the Mid Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center (a subsidiary of the National Juvenile Defender Center) and the West Virginia Court Improvement Program.
Publications:
Juvenile Justice on Appeal, 66 Miami L. Rev.__ (forthcoming 2012)
Consent, Coercion, and Compassion: Emerging Legal Responses to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Minors, 30 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1 (2011)
Asylum for Victims of Domestic Violence: Is Protection Possible After In Re: R.A.?,49 CATH. U. L. REV. 785 (2000)
FIRST TALK: TEEN PREGNANCY PREVENTION AMONG LATINOS (with Mayden and Castro) (1999)