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Emily R. Sutcliffe

Emily R. Sutcliffe directs the Toll Public Interest Center (TPIC), where she has led the Law School’s efforts to create and greatly expand the Toll Public Service Corps and works to ensure that Penn Carey Law’s ethos of service remains vibrant and attuned to the modern realities of injustice. Emily spearheads the Law School’s many public interest programs and the pro bono requirement - one of the longest standing and most expansive pro bono programs in the nation. Emily supervises a team of six in their work to make certain that all members of Penn Law’s robust public interest community are well supported and well prepared for their futures, and that every Penn Law student makes service a meaningful aspect of their legal education and ultimately, their careers.

TPIC’s work includes the oversight of more than 20 pro bono projects that perform supervised legal service in a variety of substantive areas and the management of community partnerships that drive that work; advising students on how best to prepare themselves throughout law school for public interest careers, and directing the Penn Law Post Graduate Fellowship Program and the Toll Public Service Corps which houses the Toll Public Interest Scholars & Fellows Programs and the Public Interest Experience (PIE).

Emily teaches the course Power, Injustice, & Change in America at the Law School and is a lecturer at Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice, where her courses focus on socially-minded leadership and group dynamics. Emily first came to Penn as a student, and before joining the Law School she lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where she taught English, was an AmeriCorps volunteer working in refugee resettlement, and was a nonprofit consultant for the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. Emily serves as a content area expert for the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative and has led trainings in Malaysia, Zambia, and Burkina Faso and regularly researches, writes, and speaks on matters of race, social class, religion, and belonging in U.S. contexts. Emily currently sits on the board of Justice at Work (JAW) and was a founding board member of the Youth Sentencing & Re-Entry Project (YSRP).

Emily lives with her husband and their two young sons in New Jersey.