Becki T. Kondkar
Director, Tulane Domestic Violence Clinic and Women's Prison Project
Education & Affiliations
Biography
Professor Kondkar is Tulane Law School’s Faculty Chair of Clinics and directs the DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CLINIC + WOMEN’S PRISON PROJECT. She specializes in litigation involving gender-based violence. Kondkar has represented hundreds of survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, stalking, trafficking, and child sex abuse in civil and criminal courts, has trained generations of law students through Tulane’s clinical programs, and has educated attorneys, judges, mental health professionals, and advocates nationwide on legal system responses to gender-based violence. She has lectured frequently on the use and misuse of psychological science and expert testimony in cases involving intimate partner violence and has authored both Louisiana and national practice manuals for lawyers representing survivors. Her areas of expertise include gender-based violence, legal system and law enforcement responses to it, and trauma-informed lawyering.
In 2020, Kondkar founded the Women’s Prison Project, which seeks freedom for criminalized abuse survivors through pre-trial and post-conviction representation and through a partnership with jailhouse lawyers to build gender-specific legal expertise within women’s prisons. Since 2020, WPP faculty and students have won freedom for 16 women who had served a combined total of 279 years in Louisiana's prisons - most for having killed an abusive partner in self-defense. The program’s groundbreaking work has been featured in a Feminism NOW podcast, and recognized by the Conference on Crimes Against Women, the American College of Trial Lawyers, the Louisiana Association of Defense Lawyers, the American Association of Law Schools Pro Bono and Access to Justice Section, the Clinical Legal Education Association, and the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Before joining Tulane’s faculty in 2006, Kondkar litigated intimate partner violence and child abuse cases in 11 states - first as a legal services lawyer, and later as part of a nationwide practice specializing in child abuse litigation.
