Jean joined the Indiana Federal Community Defender’s Office in 2019, following a four-year term as a law clerk to the Honorable William T. Lawrence, a federal district judge in the Southern District of Indiana. Prior to clerking, Jean spent several years teaching legal research and writing at Oklahoma City University School of Law. During this time, she also wrote capital habeas corpus petitions, and criminal appellate briefs and motions. Additionally, Jean was a member of Terry Nichols’ state capital trial team in Oklahoma. Jean came to Oklahoma from her work as a trial attorney at the Federal Defender of Eastern Washington and Idaho, a position she took out of law school. Jean’s commitment to capital defense began in college, leading her to intern in the capital post-conviction unit of the Indiana State Public Defender’s Office the summer before she matriculated at Yale Law School. While in law school, she spent most of her time pursuing this interest, including interning at the Southern Center for Human Rights and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; working on an Indiana capital trial case; and serving as a research assistant for Professor Stephen Bright.
In her role as an attorney in the Capital § 2255 Unit, Jean brings her extensive legal writing expertise to bear as she works with teams to investigate and litigate the claims of her clients. In the first case Jean worked on in the § 2255 Unit, the team secured a reversal of a federally imposed death sentence in Texas, United States v. Sherman Fields.
In her free time, Jean enjoys spending time with her family and travelling. She is an avid fan of Indiana University women’s basketball.