Alex Coven | Women's Justice Project | Staff Attorney

Alex Coven was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in New Jersey. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Political Science, he attended law school in New York City. While there, he participated in several criminal defense clinics, and graduated with a focus in criminal law. Alex clerked for a judge in New Jersey’s Middlesex County Superior Court, before beginning his career as a public defender. During his time at the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, Alex represented both adult and juvenile clients, and was among the first in his office to litigate newly developed pretrial release hearings when New Jersey implemented bail reform in 2017.

After relocating to Portland, Alex chose to shift his focus from public defense to criminal justice policy—with an eye on tackling some of the big picture issues that plagued him as a public defender. He believes in the need for robust criminal justice reform, particularly by ending the epidemic of mass incarceration and remedying the gross racial, gender, and economic disparities of our criminal justice system.

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JD, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, cum laude
BA, Rutgers University, magna cum laude