Faculty and Administration Profiles
Helen Skinner
Title/s: Field Supervisor, Federal Defender Program; Criminal Mitigation Specialist
Specialty Area: Advocacy (Trial Advocacy)
Email: hks.mitigation@gmail.com
About
Helen Kim Skinner is presently a part-time adjunct professor teaching Children's Law Policy and Practice in the On-Line M.J. in Child Law Program and Intensive Trial Advocacy Course (ChildLaw) in the law school. She also works as a private contractor at the Federal Defender Program in Chicago, where she supervises M.S.W. students from various social work schools in Chicago and practices privately as a forensic social worker/criminal mitigation specialist. Professor Skinner received her J.D. and M.S.W. from Loyola's School of Law and School of Social Work in 1997. She began her career as as a court coordinator in the Circuit Court of Cook County before becoming an attorney in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, Child Protection and Juvenile Justice Divisions. She spent ten years at the Federal Defender Program in Chicago as a staff attorney representing individuals charged with federal crimes in the Northern District of Illinois. She previously taught in Loyola's School of Social Work, she assisted in the formation of the James B. Moran Second Chance Program (a federal reentry court) that continues to operate in the Northern District of Illinois, and she began the social work internship program at the FDP in 2003.
Degrees
JD, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
MSW, Loyola University Chicago
Program Areas
Introduction to Children's Law