Jack Harrison is the Director of the LSU Law Center’s Juvenile Defense Clinic, a position he assumed in 2021, after having served as an adjunct faculty member since 2009. He also served for nearly fifteen years as public defender in the Juvenile Court of East Baton Rouge Parish. While serving as public defender for youth in Baton Rouge, Jack worked to develop a partnership in which LCCR would be able to provide a more effective holistic Client Services Unit serving the youth and families in Baton Rouge. That partnership, which began in 2017 with one social worker, has flourished and expanded as all stakeholders recognize its ongoing success and benefits to the capital city region.
In addition to service as a public defender and law school teacher, Jack is also active in the youth advocacy system serving on the Board of Trustees of the Mental Health Advocacy Service and the Mwalimu Center for Justice. Jack is also the current chair of the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Statewide Leadership Collaborative, and is the current editor of the Louisiana Children’s Code Handbook.
Prior to law school, Jack studied sculpture, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Georgia in 1985, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Ohio State University in 1989.
While studying at the undergraduate and graduate levels, Professor Harrison was also writing and recording music, and spent many years touring the United States and Europe. He eventually settled in Germany in 1995, and remained there until returning to the United States when he enrolled at the LSU Law Center in 2001.
