Top
AREAS OF PRACTICE
 "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

-Arundhati Roy

 

“Power is not a matter of one dominant individual or institutions, but instead manifests in interconnected, contradictory sites where regimes of knowledge and practice circulate and take hold. This way of understanding the dispersion of power helps us realize that power is not simply about certain individuals being targeted for death or exclusion by a ruler, but instead about the creation of norms that distribute vulnerability and security.”

-Dean Spade

Carmen Guhn-Knight 

 

Carmen Guhn-Knight joined the firm as a paralegal in May 2009. She has worked on cases involving police brutality, false arrest, wrongful conviction, inhumane treatment of prisoners, illegal strip searches, and the right to record police officers, among others. Carmen is the contact person for class members in the firm’s civil rights class action lawsuits. In addition, Carmen speaks with people who want representation because they have a complaint about the way they were treated by law enforcement officials. If you have a civil rights case that you would like the firm to review, you will most likely discuss the case with Carmen first.

Carmen has spoken publically about the firm’s work on issues including wrongful convictions and prisoners’ rights at several schools and community forums. In 2015, she spoke about best practices for intake procedures at a continuing legal education program organized by the National Police Accountability Project. Carmen works with clients who were wrongfully convicted to help them build their skills in public speaking and share their powerful stories.

Carmen has also been involved with Black and Pink, a family of LGBTQ prisoners and “free world” allies who work towards the abolition of the prison industrial complex through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing.

Carmen graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College in 2008, earning a degree in Critical Social Thought. Her undergraduate education was strengthened through involvement with community organizations that support the rights of working-class and low-income people. She produced an honors thesis that explores social classes, class consciousness, and cross-class alliances in activism.

Before joining the firm, Carmen spent time traveling and volunteering in Peru and Ecuador. She also worked in western Massachusetts with Pioneer Valley Rebuilders, a not-for-profit construction company that trains and employs incarcerated people.

Carmen believes that the erosion of civil liberties, including the troubling trend of mass incarceration, is one of the greatest concerns our country faces today. She is happy to be working for a firm that seeks to overcome the social forces that lead to police brutality, wrongful convictions, inhumane treatment of prisoners, denial of free speech, discrimination, and other civil rights violations.