About
Anna E. Carpenter serves as Dean and Director of the Law Center, holds the Fenelon Boesche Chair in Law, and is Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She became the College's 14th dean in July 2024 and leads Oklahoma's only public law school, working with faculty, staff, students, alumni, the bench and bar, and university partners to advance OU Law's mission of preparing students for meaningful legal careers and public service in Oklahoma and beyond.
During her first two years as dean, OU Law has enrolled the two strongest entering classes in its history, achieving record-high median LSAT scores while continuing to expand access and maintain its longstanding commitment to affordability. Under Dean Carpenter’s leadership, the College achieved its largest fundraising year on record, raising $12 million against a previous high of $8 million. Scholarship commitments have grown by more than $7.6 million since 2024, with annual scholarship awards on track to increase by 93 percent this year.
Ninety-four percent of the Class of 2025 passed the Oklahoma bar exam, and nearly 96 percent of graduates achieved full-weight employment outcomes, up from 93 percent the previous year. OU Law now ranks No. 12 nationally among preLaw magazine’s Best Value Law Schools, its highest position on record. Carpenter has also launched a comprehensive academic success and bar preparation program and built new partnerships with tribal nations.
A nationally recognized scholar, Dean Carpenter studies how people experience civil legal problems, the roles of courts, judges, and lawyers in the civil justice system, and the design of legal institutions. Her work has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Notre Dame Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Harvard Law Review Forum, Stanford Law Review Online, and Law & Social Inquiry. Her honors include the Stephen Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award and the inaugural Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award, and she was named a Bellow Scholar by the Association of American Law Schools.
Dean Carpenter joined OU from the University of Utah, where she served as Special Advisor to the President and led major university initiatives focused on social innovation, affordability, and public service. She directed the university's work on U West Valley, a cross-campus partnership with West Valley City communities that pairs a new University of Utah hospital and health campus with health workforce development, academic programs, and economic opportunity. The initiative brought together the university's academic colleges and its health system to expand health care access and build career pathways in the health professions. Her work also included a program that used pay-for-success financing to expand research-based social interventions. She served as Professor of Law and Director of Clinical Programs at the S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Her previous academic appointments include Associate Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa College of Law and Clinical Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center.
Before entering academia, Dean Carpenter worked as a legal aid attorney and federal policy analyst. She holds a J.D. and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Willamette University.
Additional Information
Lawyerless Law Development, 75 Stan. L. Rev. Online 64 (2023) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, and Alyx Mark).
The Democratic (Il)Legitimacy of Assembly-Line Litigation, 135 Harv. L. Rev. Forum 358 (2022) (with Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, and Alyx Mark).
The Field of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1165 (2022) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, and Alyx Mark).
The Institutional Mismatch of State Civil Courts, 122 Colum. L. Rev. 1471 (2022) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, and Alyx Mark).
Judges in Lawyerless Courts, 110 Geo. L.J. 509 (2022) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark, and Jessica K. Steinberg).
Judges and the Deregulation of the Lawyer’s Monopoly, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 1 (2021) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark, and Jessica K. Steinberg).
COVID, Crisis, and Courts, 99 Texas L. Rev. Online 10 (2020) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark, and Jessica K. Steinberg).
Developing “NextGen” Lawyers through Project-Based Learning, in Modernising Legal Education (Catrina Denvir, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Simplified Courts Can’t Solve Inequality, 148 Daedalus, J. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. 128 (2019) (with Colleen F. Shanahan).
Studying the “New” Civil Judges, 2018 Wisc. L. Rev. 249 (2018) (with Jessica K. Steinberg, Colleen F. Shanahan, and Alyx Mark).
Active Judging and Access to Justice, 93 Notre Dame L. Rev. 647 (2017).
Measuring Law School Clinics, 92 Tulane L. Rev. 547 (2018) (with Colleen F. Shanahan, Jeffrey Selbin, and Alyx Mark).
Trial and Error: Lawyers and Nonlawyer Advocates, 42 Law & Soc. Inquiry 1023 (2017) (peer-reviewed) (with Colleen F. Shanahan and Alyx Mark).
Can a Little Representation Be a Dangerous Thing? 67 Hastings L. J. 1387 (2016) (with Colleen F. Shanahan and Alyx Mark).
Lawyers, Power, and Strategic Expertise, 93 Denver L. Rev. 469 (2016) (with Colleen F. Shanahan and Alyx Mark).
The Project Model of Clinical Education: Eight Pedagogical Principles to Maximize Student Learning and Social Justice Impact, 20 Clinical L. Rev. 39 (2013) (peer-reviewed).
Stephen Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award, Association of American Law Schools, 2023
Alli Gerkman Legal Visionary Award, Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, 2021
American Constitution Society Junior Scholars Public Law Workshop Selected Paper: Active Judging and Access to Justice, 2017
New Voices in Civil Justice Workshop, Selected Paper: Lawyers, Powers, and Strategic Expertise, 2015
Bellow Scholar, Association of American Law Schools, 2013-2015
Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow, Georgetown University Law Center, 2011-2013