Professor Yvette Butler‘s scholarship examines how the law and theories underlying lawmaking protect or hinder the survival and resistance strategies of marginalized groups, particularly illustrated by people who engage in sex work. Her areas of focus are Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence and Theories of Collective Liberation (particularly Race and Gender), Criminal Law (particularly transformative justice and penal abolition), Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and Work Law.
She has engaged in state and federal civil litigation related to police misconduct, family law, criminal record expungement, and more. In 2014, she worked as an attorney with the Law Office of Victor Glasberg & Associates, an Alexandria, Virginia based federal civil rights firm. In 2015, she clerked for a Federal Magistrate Judge in her home state of South Dakota. In 2016, Professor Butler returned to the Washington, DC area to represent and advocate for policy change alongside sex workers and survivors of trafficking at the Amara Legal Center as an Attorney and Director of Policy. In 2019, Professor Butler served as Director of Capacity Building and Systems Change with the Center for Survivor Agency and Justice, a national non-profit working at the intersection of domestic/sexual violence and economic security.
Education
J.D. (2014), George Washington University
B.A. Philosophy (2011), University of Minnesota, Morris
