Gretchen Sween, Ph.d., j.d.
After laboring as a free-lance writer, theater actor and director, and teacher, Gretchen opted for a career change. She set out for the University of Texas School of Law, where she earned her J.D. in 2003. As a law student, she became involved with the Capital Punishment Clinic, then led by renowned death-penalty attorney Rob Owen, and worked as a research assistant for Professor Jordan Steiker, an expert in death-penalty jurisprudence. Upon graduation, she served as a law clerk to a federal judge, the Honorable Sim Lake, in the Southern District of Texas. She then practiced civil trial and appellate law at prestigious firms (Susman Godfrey LLP, Dechert LLP, and Beck Redden LLP). She also spent several years back at her alma mater, UT Law, teaching legal writing and appellate advocacy courses and coaching winning interscholastic moot court teams.
During her years as a civil law practitioner, she worked on numerous pro bono appeals in capital cases, including authoring amicus briefs in support of petitioners to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2015, she represented an indigent individual, Raphael Holiday, pro bono, litigating the right to obtain substitute counsel when the client had been abandoned by counsel on the brink of an execution date. Thereafter, she decided to devote her full-time practice to defending indigent individuals in death-penalty cases, first as Senior Post-Conviction Attorney with the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, a state public defender office, and then in private practice in Austin, Texas. A more robust recounting of that transition is captured in this article: And the Light Got In.
She is admitted to practice law in the state courts of Texas, in the Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western federal district courts of Texas, in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, and in the Supreme Court of the United States.
EDUCATION
J.D. with honors, The University of Texas School of Law, 2003
Ph.D. in Humanities with distinction, The University of Texas at Dallas, 1994
M.A. in Humanities, The University of Texas at Dallas, 1990
B.A. in Literary Studies magna cum laude, The University of Texas at Dallas, 1988
Drama Major, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, Dean’s List, 1982-1985
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During her years as a civil law practitioner, she worked on numerous pro bono appeals in capital cases, including authoring amicus briefs in support of petitioners to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2015, she represented an indigent individual, Raphael Holiday, pro bono, litigating the right to obtain substitute counsel when the client had been abandoned by counsel on the brink of an execution date. Thereafter, she decided to devote her full-time practice to defending indigent individuals in death-penalty cases, first as Senior Post-Conviction Attorney with the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, a state public defender office, and then in private practice in Austin, Texas. A more robust recounting of that transition is captured in this article: And the Light Got In.
She is admitted to practice law in the state courts of Texas, in the Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western federal district courts of Texas, in the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, and in the Supreme Court of the United States.
EDUCATION
J.D. with honors, The University of Texas School of Law, 2003
Ph.D. in Humanities with distinction, The University of Texas at Dallas, 1994
M.A. in Humanities, The University of Texas at Dallas, 1990
B.A. in Literary Studies magna cum laude, The University of Texas at Dallas, 1988
Drama Major, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, Dean’s List, 1982-1985
View full CV.