Amy Thompson
Staff Counsel, Criminal Legal System
Amy Thompson is Staff Counsel for Impact for Equity’s Criminal Legal Systems team. Her work has included researching and crafting recommendations to strengthen Illinois’ police officer decertification system, developing comments advocating for improvements to Chicago’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance and the federal Community Reinvestment Act, and supporting the Police Accountability team’s ongoing efforts to reform Chicago’s police union contracts and reimagine public safety.
Amy Thompson received her JD in 2019 from the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, where she obtained specializations from the Critical Race Studies Program and the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law & Policy. As a law student, Amy served as Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Women’s Law Journal and worked with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Civil Rights Corps in Washington D.C., and Public Counsel in Los Angeles. Prior to joining BPI, she served as a law clerk with the Honorable Nanette K. Laughrey in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Amy comes to this work deeply invested in dismantling systems of racial, gender, and economic oppression and committed to centering the voices of directly impacted people. These commitments motivate her not only to engage in work that targets white supremacy and systemic barriers to equity but also to be intentional about ensuring that the work is done in a way that builds the power of and follows leadership from the community.
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