Robert C. Owen

Visiting Clinical Professor of Law

Phone: 312-503-1774
E-mail: robert.owen1@law.northwestern.edu

| Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Rob Owen is a Visiting Clinical Professor of Law. Since becoming a lawyer in 1989, he has defended people facing the death penalty at every level of the state and federal court system, including arguing four cases successfully at the United States Supreme Court (Tennard v. Dretke (2004), Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman (2007), Brewer v. Quarterman (2007), and Skinner v. Switzer (2010)). He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Georgia in 1984, earning an A.B. in Comparative Literature with highest honors. After completing an M.A. in Speech Communication at the same institution in 1986, he received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1989. Mr. Owen began his career as a lawyer with the nonprofit Texas Resource Center in Austin, representing prisoners on Texas’ death row. After six years there, he served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Seattle from 1995-1998 before returning to Texas.  He is regularly invited to appear as a faculty member at trainings around the nation for capital defense lawyers, and has testified before state legislatures in Washington and Texas concerning proposed changes in death penalty law. Since 2006, he has been co-director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where law students in 2008 recognized him for having gone “above and beyond” on their behalf. He is a recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Award in recognition of his work in representing condemned prisoners.