Jennifer Hopgood earned a degree in Japanese Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Before graduating from Berkeley, she began to work as a business litigation legal assistant in San Francisco—she had an interest in law and wanted to gain first-hand experience in the profession. While she enjoyed working in litigation, Jennifer felt the need to engage her idealism and desire to make a positive difference in the world. Inspired by a close college friend who was a disability rights activist, Jennifer decided after six years of legal work, and a move to the cheaper environs of Austin, to become a special education teacher. She earned a post-baccalaureate teaching certification from U.T. Austin in 1997 and taught severely disabled middle and high school students for three years and middle school English for eight years (during which time, Jennifer taught Mark Mueller’s twin sons, Max and Andy). Despite a rewarding eleven-year teaching career, Jennifer still had dreams of becoming a lawyer.
Jennifer graduated from University of Houston Law Center in May 2011. She co-founded the UHLC Family Law Organization and was chief articles editor for the UHLC Environmental & Energy Law Policy Journal. She also interned for Judge Michael E. Keasler of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and co-edited Texas Marital Property Rights, 2011, written by her family law professor, J. Thomas Oldham.
Jennifer was a visiting student at the University of Texas School of Law for two semesters. At U.T. she was on the staff of the Texas Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy.
Jennifer is licensed to practice law in Texas.
Jennifer is the co-editor of American Justice in the Age of Innocence: Understanding the Causes of Wrongful Convictions and How to Prevent Them and is author of the chapter Justice Denied: How Texas Courts Are Misinterpreting Chapter 64 and Improperly Denying Post-Conviction DNA Testing. She edited the book with a fellow classmate and her beloved criminal law professor, Sandra Guerra Thompson. The book was featured at the October 2011 Texas Indigent Defense Commission’s Symposium and Workshop, held at the Texas capitol.
After law school Jennifer worked in the Travis County Attorney’s Appellate Division. She co-authored the appellee brief in appeal No. 03-10-00686, regarding legal sufficiency of intoxication in a DWI conviction. During the same time, she interned in the Travis County’s Domestic/Family Violence court.
In her free time, Jennifer enjoys traveling—particularly to Mexico; running on Austin’s Town Lake with her sweet collie Charlie, who she adopted from Houston Collie Rescue; reading, especially United States’ history; and fiddling around on the guitar and piano. She is a former board member of the Sustainable Food Center of Austin.
