LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center graduate Jane Hogan was awarded the Outstanding Young Lawyer Award by the National Association of Counsel for Children July 28 for her advocacy on behalf of children and families in Louisiana.
Hogan graduated from the Law Center in 2013 and served as a juvenile public defender in Lafayette for three years.
In the numerous appeals Hogan filed, she challenged mandatory minimum sentencing for juveniles, represented mothers seeking to retain custody of their children and reversed the convictions of many of her juvenile clients.
“I don’t believe that people are inherently bad,” Hogan said. “Look at why [the crime] happened. Look at the circumstances. Look at what could we have done, [what] could his family have done, what can we do now? I don’t think that we should give up on people. I think that we should try to heal them.”
After three years of work as a public defender, she transferred to Hogan Attorneys, a family-owned private practice.
“I had emotional fatigue. I had heard so many sad stories, and dealt with so much chaos and so much trauma, that I was becoming a really bad lawyer,” Hogan said.
At Hogan Attorneys, she continues to work on behalf of juveniles. She is currently involved in a case that raises a constitutional challenge to a Louisiana law that allows juveniles to be automatically transferred to the adult system after a finding of probable cause.
Hogan said her aspirations for the future include funding or founding a nonprofit law office that handles constitutional challenges.
“The thing I love about the law is that you can change things with one person, one case, with the right set of facts,” she said. “And you can get a ruling that can then help everybody who’s going to come after that has the same set of facts.”
She also works with LSU Law Center students in the Parole and Reentry Clinic, a program that allows third-year law students to work with clients seeking parole at Louisiana State Penitentiary.
“It’s just amazing to sit next to somebody who after 15 or 20 years is being told he can go home,” she said. “It’s a really beautiful thing, and it’s a beautiful thing for our students to experience.”
Richard Pittman, director of juvenile defender services at the Louisiana Public Defender Board, said Hogan’s desire to bring justice to those who need it most is what makes her an outstanding attorney. Pittman nominated Hogan for the Outstanding Young Lawyer Award.
“She could go work for Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, L.L.P. and do insurance defense,” Pittman said, “and probably make a lot more money. But she wants to do this instead. She wants to use the skills that she has to better the lives of vulnerable children and vulnerable families, and that’s not something you see every day.”
Hogan said the best piece of advice is to be humble, to ask questions and to take advice from people with experience.
“I know a lot of people that are older and wiser than I am,” Hogan said. “I call them relentlessly.”