Lisa Kerr

After graduating law school in 2006, Lisa clerked at the B.C. Court of Appeal and work as a litigation associate with Fasken Martineau. Lisa discovered punishment studies while completing a master’s in law at New York University in 2009, working as research assistant to David Garland on his prizewinning book on the American death penalty, Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition. Lisa returned to Vancouver as staff lawyer at Prisoners' Legal Services (PLS), Canada's only dedicated legal services office for incarcerated people. Under the expert guidance of PLS staff, Lisa learned how to litigate the systemic human rights challenges facing Canadian prisoners. During this time, she developed a proposal for doctoral research that would examine the gap between the conventional legal account of punishment and the realities of prison administration. She completed her doctorate at New York University in 2015 as a Trudeau Scholar.

For many years, Lisa worked on public interest litigation aimed at protecting set worker rights with Pivot Legal Society. She currently serves on the board of the BC Civil Liberties Association.