Karen Daniel
Karen Daniel (Photo: Jennifer Linzer)
Senior Staff Attorney Karen Daniel has devoted her legal career to representing the indigent and powerless. As a student at Harvard Law School she served on the Board of Directors of the student-run Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, and she also interned with the United Farm Workers Union in California.
Upon her graduation from law school in 1981, Ms. Daniel joined the Office of the State Appellate Defender where she represented hundreds of indigent criminal defendants on appeal and supervised the representation of hundreds more.
One of her long-time clients was Willie Rainge, a member of the Ford Heights Four, whose exoneration played a large part in focusing public attention on the plight of the wrongly convicted.
In 1996, Ms. Daniel put her legal career on hold to become a parent. She subsequently began a part-time private practice in which she continued her representation of indigent defendants through court appointments until she joined the Center on Wrongful Convictions in 2000. During her tenure at the CWC, Ms. Daniel has successfully represented Michael Evans, who was exonerated by DNA testing after serving 27 years in prison; Dana Holland, who was proven innocent of two separate crimes after a decade of incarceration; and former death-row inmate Randy Steidl, who was released after 17 years of wrongful imprisonment.
