Tara Thompson

Partner

Biography

Tara Thompson is a partner at Loevy & Loevy.

Tara is an experienced civil rights attorney who concentrates her civil practice in the area of wrongful convictions.  She started at Loevy & Loevy in 2007 and worked in Chicago until relocating to the East Coast.  After spending two years working as a Senior Staff attorney with the Innocence Project, she rejoined Loevy & Loevy in 2023.

Tara graduated with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 2003. She served as the Senior Comment Editor for the University of Chicago Legal Forum. She also participated in the law school’s Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, working for several years in the Civil Rights & Police Accountability Project under the direction of Professor Craig Futterman. She was a member of the clinic student board and received the Edwin F. Mandel award, given yearly to those law school graduates who most demonstrate commitment to and effective advocacy for clients.

Following law school Tara worked as an associate in Mayer Brown’s Chicago office, where she represented clients in a variety of litigation matters, including a significant commitment to pro bono representation. She left Mayer Brown in 2006 to clerk for Judge Elaine Bucklo of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. After completing her clerkship, she joined Loevy & Loevy in 2007. She has been admitted to practice in numerous federal district courts and circuit courts of appeals across the United States, including the Trial Bar of the Northern District of Illinois.

In addition to her work with the firm, Tara spends a significant amount of her practice working with the Exoneration Project.  She spent a decade co-teaching the Exoneration Project clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, and now operates an Exoneration Project externship program at Columbia Law School. Through the Exoneration Project Tara has represented numerous clients who have been exonerated and freed from prison for crimes they did not commit.

When not practicing law and teaching, Tara can be found cheering for the Utah Jazz and Gotham FC.

Bar Admissions

  • New York, 2022
  • Connecticut, 2021
  • Illinois, 2003

University of Chicago Law School, Chicago, Illinois
• J.D. with honors – 2003

University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
• Honors B.A., cum laude – 2000

Clerkships & Past Employment

  • PILI Fellow, Civil Rights & Police Accountability Project, Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, University of Chicago Law School
  • Associate, Mayer Brown LLP, Chicago, Illinois
  • Law Clerk, Hon. Elaine E. Bucklo, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
  • Senior Staff Attorney, The Innocence Project, New York, New York

Our Impact

Loevy + Loevy has won more multi-million dollar verdicts than perhaps any other law firm in the country over the past decade. Our willingness to take hard cases to trial, and win them, has yielded a nationally recognized reputation for success in the courtroom.

Read the latest public reporting and press releases about Loevy + Loevy’s clients, our public interest litigation, and our civil rights impact.

We take on the nation’s most difficult public interest cases, advocating in and outside the courtroom to secure justice for our clients and to hold officials, governments, and corporations accountable.

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