Thea Johnson joined Stanford Law School in 2012 as a fellow in the Legal Research and Writing Program. Previously Johnson was an attorney with the Criminal Defense Division of The Legal Aid Society in New York City, where she litigated criminal cases from arraignment to trial. Before becoming an attorney at The Legal Aid Society, Johnson was a Simpson Thacher & Bartlett fellow with Legal Aid.

Johnson graduated with honors from The George Washington University Law School, where she was on the International Law Review, Moot Court Board, and Alternative Dispute Resolution Board. She also served as a Dean’s Fellow to the Legal Research and Writing Program at George Washington. During law school, Johnson spent a semester working for Trial Chamber III at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.  She received a degree in History from Harvard College, where she was awarded fellowships from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for Public Interest Careers. Her senior honors thesis focused on the role of radical feminism in changing rape laws in the early part of the 1970s in New York. 

Johnson’s current research and writing interests include comparative perspectives on criminal law with a focus on Latin America, as well as trends in reproductive rights in Latin America. Her paper, “Guaranteed Access to Safe and Legal Abortions: The True Revolution of Mexico City’s Legal Reforms Regarding Abortion,” won the 2009 Alice Paul Feminist Jurisprudence Essay Contest at the Washington School of Law at American University. Her most recent piece, “Inside the Bubble: Educating Ecuador’s Elites” was published in the summer 2011 issue of The World Policy Journal.