Carla Laroche
Felder-Fayard Associate Professor of Law
Education & Affiliations
Biography
Carla Laroche (she/her) has dedicated her career to increasing access to justice and opportunities for systemically excluded communities. She is the Felder-Fayard Associate Professor of Law at Tulane University School of Law and the Murphy Institute. Professor Laroche’s legal scholarship, teaching, and work experiences address how people navigate civil legal systems and seek to access their rights when they have arrest and conviction histories, with a focus on criminal law, gender, race, voting rights, and family law. Her work is published in traditional law journals, including Boston University Law Review, University of Richmond Law Review, and Columbia Journal of Race and Law, bar journals, and newspapers. Professor Laroche has presented these pressing issues at workshops, conferences, and community events around the nation and internationally, and been interviewed for print and other media outlets.
Prior to joining Tulane, Professor Laroche was an Associate Clinical Professor at Washington & Lee University School of Law (W&L). She founded and directed the Civil Rights and Racial Justice Clinic at W&L, which focused on the economic rights of communities through direct representation, community engagement, and systemic reform measures. Professor Laroche was a clinical professor at Florida State University College of Law, where she founded and directed the Gender and Family Justice Clinic and taught Gender Justice, an interview skills course that analyzed the factors that push women and girls into the criminal legal system, and COVID-19 and the Law, an upper-level writing seminar. In recognition of her teaching skills, she was selected as the sole inaugural recipient of the FSU 2020-21 Community Engaged Teaching (Graduate) Award. The Collateral Consequences Project she developed achieved an Honorable Mention for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project from the Clinical Legal Education Association for its work on restoring the right to vote for people with convictions in Florida. Previously, Professor Laroche served as a criminal justice reform law fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a pro bono fellow at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, a federal law clerk in the Southern District of Florida, and a Global Banking and Payments associate at Paul Hastings LLP.
A daughter of Haitian immigrants, Professor Laroche earned, concurrently, her JD from Columbia Law School and Master’s in Public Policy, with an international and global affairs concentration, from Harvard Kennedy School, and an A.B. in History, with a certificate in Women and Gender Studies, from Princeton University.
Professor Laroche received the National Bar Association’s 40 Under 40, the Excellence in Activism, and the Young Lawyers Division’s Humanitarian Awards. She was also named an American Bar Association On the Rise – Top 40 Young Lawyer. Professor Laroche co-chaired the ABA Criminal Justice Section Women in Criminal Justice Task Force. Professor Laroche is the Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar (2024-25), and she has also served as a board member and/or volunteer for national and local organizations, including the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools’ Criminal Law Section, Columbia Law School’s Alumni of Color Council and Public Interest/Public Service Council, Ms. JD, Big Bend A.F.T.E.R. Reentry Coalition, ABA Commission on Youth at Risk, and ABA Center for Human Rights.
Contributions
Selected Publications
Carla Laroche, Black Women’s Voter Emancipation in Slavery’s Afterlife, Address at the University of Richmond Law Review Symposium: Vestiges of the Confederacy: Reckoning with the Legacy of the South (Mar. 1, 2024), in 58 University of Richmond Law Review 653, 653-669 (2024).
Carla Laroche, Black Women and Voter Suppression, 102 Boston University Law Review 2431, 2431-2495 (2022).
Carla Laroche, The New Jim and Jane Crow Intersect: Challenges to Defending the Parental Rights of Mothers During Incarceration, 12 Columbia Journal of Race & Law 517, 517-556 (2022).
Voter Emancipation in Slavery’s Afterlife (work-in-progress)
Family Legal Fiction (work-in-progress)
Nonvote Voting in the Disenfranchisement Maze (work-in-progress)
Books and Book Chapters
Carla Laroche et al., Sexual Assault Proceedings on College Campuses: Current Issues, in The State of Criminal Justice 2017 (Mark E. Wojcik ed., 2017).
Carla Laroche et al., Double Sentence: The Consequences Incarcerated Mothers Face and the Impact on Their Children, in The State of Criminal Justice 2016, 207 (Mark E. Wojcik ed., 2016).
Other Legal Writing
Carla Laroche & Janet Garcia-Hallett, Protect the Abortion Rights of People in Prison Too, Ms. Magazine, Dec. 20, 2022.
Carla Laroche, No Sentencing Enhancements for Recklessness Convictions under Federal Armed Career Criminal Act, SCOTUSblog, June 23, 2021.
Carla Laroche, Love Letters to Small Businesses: The Baker Who Offers Delicious Cakes and a Sense of Home Every Time I Enter, New York Times, Feb. 13, 2021.
Carla Laroche, Argument Analysis: Justices Consider Whether Crimes of Recklessness Require Longer Sentences under Armed Career Criminal Act, SCOTUSblog, Nov. 8, 2020.
Carla Laroche, Case preview: Does “Use of Physical Force” Include a Mens Rea of Recklessness?, SCOTUSblog, Nov. 2, 2020.
Carla Laroche, Black Women’s Voting Rights Silenced Yet Again, Tampa Bay Times, Aug. 2020.
Carla Laroche & Tina Luongo, Women in Criminal Justice Task Force Launches, in ABA Criminal Justice Magazine (Apr. 2019).
Carla Laroche, Why a YouTube Video Continues to Affect Your Access to Online Banking, Lexology, Apr. 17, 2013.
Carla Laroche et al., A Brave New World for Bank Regulation, Law360, Mar. 2013.
Carla Laroche & Kevin Petrasic, Considerations for Commenting on CARD Act’s Impact, Law360, Jan. 2013.
Carla Laroche & Kevin Petrasic, CFPB Seeks Comment on Policy to Encourage Trial Consumer Disclosure Programs, Stay Current: A Client Alert from Paul Hastings, Dec. 2012.
Carla Laroche & Kevin Petrasic, CFPB Ombudsman Annual Report Highlights Consumer Complaint Process, CFPB Enforcement Attorneys at Exams, Stay Current: A Client Alert from Paul Hastings, Dec. 2012.