In episode 84, we chat with Clare Diegel, who is currently Director of the Professional Standards Division at the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minnesota. Clare shares how her LLM in International Human Rights, experience in big law, and Ninth Circuit clerkship, while all incredible opportunities, actually made getting a state-level public defender job quite difficult! She also discusses how she managed burnout when she eventually did become a public defender, and how starting a family played a role in her career trajectory, as well. We thoroughly enjoyed learning from Clare (you will hear a lot of laughter!), and we hope you will, too.
Clare Diegel is the Director of the Professional Standards Division at the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minnesota. Prior to this role, Clare was a staff attorney at the ACLU of Minnesota, and a public defender in both Minnesota and Seattle. Clare also clerked at both the federal district and circuit court levels, first in the Central District of Illinois and later on the Ninth Circuit. Between her two clerkships, Clare worked at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago.
Clare is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where she earned both her JD and an LLM in International Human Rights.