TaraAllison

Tara Allison is an associate in Jenner & Block’s Investigations, Compliance, and Defense Practice. Tara previously served as a trial attorney and senior counsel in the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, where she led investigative and trial teams in high-profile federal prosecutions nationwide, including criminal violations of individuals’ constitutional rights, official misconduct and color-of-law offenses, human trafficking, sex crimes, hate crimes, conspiracies, false reporting, and obstruction of justice.

Tara has tried more than a dozen criminal cases to verdict—including both jury and bench trials—managing cases from the initial stages of an investigation through trial and sentencing, and has conducted more than 200 federal witness interviews and grand jury examinations. Tara has partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and United States Attorney’s Offices (USAOs) in more than 20 federal districts. While at DOJ, Tara also served as Senior Sex Crimes Counsel in the Civil Rights Division, advising prosecutors and overseeing complex sexual-misconduct investigations and prosecutions, and as Special Assistant United States Attorney (SAUSA) at the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. She has trained federal law enforcement officers and prosecutors in civil rights and constitutional law.

Before joining DOJ through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, Tara clerked for the Honorable Rosemary S. Pooler of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Honorable Elizabeth K. Dillon of the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia. She received her JD from Harvard Law School, where she won Best Brief Winner in the Ames Moot Court Semi-Finals and Dean’s Recognition for 1,000+ Hours of Pro Bono Service. She received her BA from Princeton University, magna cum laude, where she was a QuestBridge Scholar and received the Ernest Hemingway Prize for her senior thesis on alternative sentencing. Before law school, Tara completed a year-long Princeton in Asia fellowship in northern Thailand, where she taught English and worked at a grassroots anti-human-trafficking organization.