By Gwyneth K. Shaw
Kaela Allen ’26 grew up wanting to be a doctor.
As an undergraduate pre-med major, a volunteer stint teaching sex ed to high school students sparked an interest in public health. A native of the historically Black South Seattle neighborhood, Allen had a reverence for education, a keen interest in social justice, and a passion for creating systemic change.
A doctor mentor told her flatly to look outside medicine. Still, she took the MCAT in the spring of 2020, as a global pandemic flipped the world from in-person life to an almost all-virtual experience.
Halfway through the exam, Allen closed her computer and quit.
That same week, a Teach for America recruiter reached out to her on LinkedIn. Her journey in education took her to California, graduate school — and a second candid conversation.
“I was telling my professor that my North Star is that I want to serve my community, and I want my community to thrive. And I felt horrible, because as a teacher, I was traumatizing my students through the disciplinary actions and the approach we took to teaching, and that broke my heart,” Allen says. “And he said, ‘If you want your community to thrive, traditional education is not how you’re going to do that.’
“So I thought I’d go into policy work, and just change the laws.”
A fellowship at the Alameda County Office of Education was another eye-opening experience, exposing the current system’s flaws and prompting Allen to apply to law school.
“I realized I want to change the world,” she says. “So how do I do that? I need to know how to think, I need to know how to discuss with people, I need to know how to persuade people, and I need something that’ll get me into rooms where big decisions are made.
“I figured I’ll get a law degree, and that’s how I came here.”
A full plate
Allen immediately immersed herself in activities far beyond her 1L coursework, particularly through the Pro Bono Program. She joined the Foster Education Project, one of the school’s 40 Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects, and the Berkeley Journal of Black Law & Policy. She went to Atlanta over spring break for one of the Berkeley Law Alternative Service Trips (BLAST). This year, she’s in a leadership role in all three groups, including co-editor-in-chief of the journal.
If that wasn’t enough, in the spring semester she was a legislative extern at the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center through the law school’s Call for Necessary Engagement in Community & Timely Response initiative. Last summer, she interned at the law school-affiliated East Bay Community Law Center as an Equal Justice America fellow.
This summer, she’ll intern at Just Futures Law, focusing on technology and policy accountability.
Each facet, Allen says, has been profound in different ways — delivering a law school experience that’s deeply connected to the real-world changes she wants to see while also allowing her to think hard about legal theory and what the role of the law should be.
The Foster Education Project is literally street-level advocacy: Allen was matched with a student in foster care right when she began law school. They grew close quickly and have remained so.
“I loved coming back to school, but something I missed from working in policy work is I like working with kids, I want to talk to kids, I want to mentor kids, and this was how I could do that,” she says. “I’ve witnessed domestic abuse in my own family, and especially in the Black community, child abuse is so normalized. It makes sense though. There’s a spotlight on Black children, and if they mess up the tiniest bit, the results can be fatal. Black excellence is a survival mechanism.
“I wanted to be in a child’s life to say, ‘Hey, I know what it’s like to have a lot of struggles. I know what it’s like to have people tell you that you’re not going to amount to anything, to have people question you and not listen to you. And I want you to know that your voice matters and you’re amazing.’ I wanted that one-on-one connection.”
The BLAST trip — which Allen calls “hands down, the best experience of my law school career” — was another chance to experience the impact of good lawyering. All 10 participants were women, and Allen’s group worked with the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, helping domestic violence victims access restraining orders and other services.
The open-plan office was intense, she says: High-stakes work with the ability to overhear the details of other cases going on. But evenings were for debriefing and connecting.
“I think a lot of us on that trip have our own personal experiences with domestic abuse, and so there was that extra level of ‘this was hard because it was similar to what I’ve experienced and something I think about often,’” Allen says. “Being someone who’s very deep into public interest, a big challenge is making the work sustainable. How do you hold space for someone else going through horrible times while also holding space for yourself?
“It was a good reminder that these are people’s lives, that we’re doing this for actual human beings who deserve to be happy, but the world’s messing it up.”
Allen says she wanted to lead this year’s trip to help guide others through that process.
Deep thinking
The Berkeley Journal of Black Law & Policy was another draw, and a place to take a step back from lawyering and think about what a different world should and might look like.
“What I love about the journal is, on one hand, we’re just a bunch of nerds who like to read articles that center Black folks and Black lives and the history of this country and envision a better world for Black folks, but also we recognize that central to Black history and Black liberation is activism and movements,” she says. “I’m also an organizer, and the journal has become another channel to fuel my activism.
“It’s such a huge privilege and opportunity to get to decide who gets published and shape what those articles look like, and then to host events where we can bring big thinkers together in conversation with each other — we really get to shape the legal zeitgeist. It provides a good balance. I see horrible things happening on the street, but then I get to think about what we can actually do to change that. It gives me hope.”
Her experience, coupled with a research project supervised by Professor Jonathan D. Glater, convinced Allen to make a major career decision: She wants to become a professor and will apply for Ph.D. programs in anthropology and education during her 3L year.
As a 1L, Allen attended an event on careers in legal academia with Professors Jonah B. Gelbach, Stephanie Campos-Bui ’14, Ayelet Shachar, and Andrew C. Baker. She’s grateful that the option was highlighted so early in her time as a student, then cemented by her editing and research work.
The flexibility of a J.D. degree means there are avenues far beyond practice, she adds, and it’s her intention to make the most of it.
“I realized this is all I want to do — I just want to research and write and be creative and radical and think about what the world could look like,” she says. “I miss teaching so much. I love mentoring, and I love organizing, and I think in every huge movement, what lights the fire and keeps the movement going are students.”