Olivia Sedwick
Olivia N. Sedwick, Esq. is the 2020-2021 Francis D. Murnaghan Appellate Advocacy Fellow at the Public Justice Center in Baltimore, Maryland. There she handles appellate matters in the state of Maryland and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the following issue areas: housing, public health, employment, education, prisoner’s rights, and other civil rights issues.
Prior to becoming the 2020-2021 Murnaghan Fellow, Olivia was a judicial clerk to the Honorable Carl E. Stewart, Sr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, Louisiana. Before her federal appellate clerkship, Olivia was an Antitrust & Competition associate in the D.C. Office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, & Hampton, LLP.
Olivia has a long history of community organizing that reaches back to her days as a student and student leader at Winston-Salem State University. As the Student Body President of Winston-Salem State when Michael “Mike” Brown, Jr. was shot and killed by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, Olivia’s world was shaken. She has since been committed to ensuring that officers are held to account for their misconduct. While completing her law degree, Olivia spent the entirety of her third year of law school studying the intricate judicial and statutory framework that shields most police officers from suit when they commit egregious acts of violence and other misconduct against the public. As a student attorney in the Human and Civil Rights Clinic housed within the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard Law, Olivia and her team of co-counsel authored a brief to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Lezley McSpadden, mother of the late Mike Brown, Jr., detailing the specific train of abuses that law enforcement officers perpetuate against Black Americans in this country.
Olivia holds a B.A. in Political Science with a double minor in economics and history from Winston-Salem State University and a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Bar of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Prior to becoming the 2020-2021 Murnaghan Fellow, Olivia was a judicial clerk to the Honorable Carl E. Stewart, Sr. on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, Louisiana. Before her federal appellate clerkship, Olivia was an Antitrust & Competition associate in the D.C. Office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, & Hampton, LLP.
Olivia has a long history of community organizing that reaches back to her days as a student and student leader at Winston-Salem State University. As the Student Body President of Winston-Salem State when Michael “Mike” Brown, Jr. was shot and killed by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014, Olivia’s world was shaken. She has since been committed to ensuring that officers are held to account for their misconduct. While completing her law degree, Olivia spent the entirety of her third year of law school studying the intricate judicial and statutory framework that shields most police officers from suit when they commit egregious acts of violence and other misconduct against the public. As a student attorney in the Human and Civil Rights Clinic housed within the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard Law, Olivia and her team of co-counsel authored a brief to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Lezley McSpadden, mother of the late Mike Brown, Jr., detailing the specific train of abuses that law enforcement officers perpetuate against Black Americans in this country.
Olivia holds a B.A. in Political Science with a double minor in economics and history from Winston-Salem State University and a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Bar of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.