Focus on the Field Center

Field Center Advisory Board Profile: Catherine C. Carr, Esq.

Catherine Carr joined the Field Center Advisory Board in 2002. The Board has greatly benefited from her expertise in public interest law, as well as her involvement in the Philadelphia legal community.

Ms. Carr is the Executive Director of Community Legal Services, Inc., a nonprofit law firm which provides free legal services to indigent Philadelphians in civil matters. Ms. Carr served as a staff attorney at CLS for eleven years before becoming director, specializing in public benefits case litigation, including access to welfare, Social Security, and Medicaid benefits.

Ms. Carr serves or has served on the board of directors of a number of public interest law firms and nonprofits in Philadelphia, including the Community Justice Project, Women’s Law Project, The Reinvestment Fund and VIP, Philadelphia’s pro bono project. She has served in leadership positions for a number of bar associations, including in the House of Delegates of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Judicial Selection Commission of the Philadelphia Bar Association, and the Legal Services Project of the ABA Section of Litigation. She serves as a Lecturer of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she teaches “Public Interest Lawyering”, and where she is a member of the Public Service Advisory Board and on the Board of Managers of the Alumni Society.

Ms. Carr received her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Review. She received her B.A. cum laude from Yale University, where she was the first graduate with a Women’s Studies major. She clerked for the Honorable Norma L. Shapiro of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Field Center Student Profile: Theda Allen

Theda Allen is an MSW candidate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice. Theda came to Penn as a transfer student from the Rutgers MSW program, impressed with the school’s reputation and faculty, as well as the racism sequence that is offered.

She was placed with the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research in the Fall 2008 semester, interested in learning more about the issue of child abuse and neglect. Her field placement with the Field Center has provided her with both a personal and an academic learning experience. Theda worked on a Child Neglect Study with Faculty Director Alan Lerner, and did preliminary research on evidence-based therapy models for abused children.

After graduation, Theda would like to become a teacher in her local public school district, saying, “teachers play many roles and I know that I am highly equipped to assume those roles because I will have an MSW degree from Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice.” Originally from Philadelphia, Theda now resides in New Jersey and is the mother of three children.