The University of Texas at Austin   School of Law

Education

• JD Harvard
• MA University of Georgia
• AB University of Georgia

Areas of Specialty

• Capital Punishment

Since 1989, Rob Owen has defended people facing the death penalty at every level of the state and federal court system, including arguing successfully at the United States Supreme Court (Tennard v. Dretke (2004), Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman (2007), Brewer v. Quarterman (2007), and Skinner v. Switzer (2010)). He has taught at the Law School continuously since 1998. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where he studied comparative literature and speech communication, and Harvard Law School. He began his career as a lawyer with the nonprofit Texas Resource Center in Austin. After six years as a staff attorney there, he served for three years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Seattle before returning to Texas. He co-directs the Capital Punishment Clinic, teaches traditional lecture courses on capital punishment, and leads a freshman seminar on the death penalty in the undergraduate Plan II Honors Program. He is a recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Award in recognition of his work in representing death-sentenced prisoners. In 2008, he was the Law Week Faculty Honoree, chosen by students to recognize his having gone "above and beyond" on their behalf, and also received the Texas Law Fellowships Excellence in Public Interest award.

Recent Activities

• Radio Interview

  August 20, 2007

  KUT-FM

  Interviewed in a KUT-FM radio news feature, "Art and the Death Penalty," which aired August 20.

• Keynote Speech

  August 16, 2007

  National Federal Habeas Corpus Seminar

  On August 16, delivered the keynote address at the twelfth annual National Federal Habeas Corpus Seminar in Nashville, Tennessee. He also led panel discussions during the conference on persuasive writing and representing federal prisoners in post-conviction litigation.

• Paper Presentation

  July 28, 2007

  Law and Society Association Annual Meeting

  On July 28, presented "Death Row Inmates in Cyberspace," a paper co-authored with Meredith Martin Rountree, at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association in Berlin.

Full activities list…