Cara McClellan GEd’12
Cara McClellan GEd’12 will be honored at the Barristers’ 2026 Annual Awards & Scholarship Gala on May 2.
Cara McClellan GEd’12, Director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic (ARC) and Practice Associate Professor of Law, will receive the 2026 Presidential Award of Courage from the Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia.
“The Barristers’ Association of Philadelphia, Inc. proudly presents the Presidential Award of Courage to Cara McClellan, a distinguished civil rights attorney, scholar, and educator committed to advancing racial justice and protecting democratic freedoms,” said the organization in a statement promoting its Annual Awards & Scholarship Gala.
For 76 years, the Barristers’ has been a cornerstone of Philadelphia’s legal community, advocating for civil rights and supporting the professional development of Black attorneys.
Its Annual Awards & Scholarship Gala—held this year on May 2 at the Grand Belle at the Bellevue in Philadelphia—brings together lawyers, judges, law students, and community leaders for a night of recognition, celebration, and impact to honor legal professionals who have demonstrated outstanding service to their communities and the justice system.
“As a Practice Associate Professor at Penn Carey Law School and Founding Director of the ARC Justice Clinic, McClellan leads impactful civil rights litigation and prepares the next generation of advocates to challenge systemic inequities,” said the Barristers’. “From her work at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to leading high-profile cases on police accountability and affirmative action, her advocacy continues to shape the national fight for justice.”
Inspired in part by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous words that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” the ARC Justice Clinic provides Penn Carey Law students with hands-on experience working in civil rights litigation and policy advocacy in the Philadelphia region using a movement lawyering approach.
Students represent clients in litigation at the trial and appellate level across systemic racism issues in areas including education, ending over-policing and mass incarceration, economic justice, and health justice, while learning to work with partners to develop an integrated advocacy strategy that incorporates organizing, policy advocacy, strategic impact litigation, and communications.
“I am humbled that the Barrister’s Association has chosen to recognize the work of ARC Justice Clinic,” said McClellan. “Directing the clinic has been a privilege for me, as I get to work collaboratively with students and represent clients whose visions for justice give me hope.”
McClellan joined the Law School in 2022 after serving as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., where her work focused on increasing education equity and ending the criminalization of Black people. She gained litigation experience as the lead counsel on several cases, including I.S. et al. v. Binghamton School District, a case challenging a school’s discriminatory strip search of four Black and Latina middle school girls, and Smith v. City of Philadelphia, challenging the Philadelphia Police Department’s indiscriminate use of military-style weapons against protesters, residents, and bystanders in a predominately Black West Philadelphia community.
Recently, she has represented the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC), a group that helped create the President’s House slavery exhibits in Philadelphia, and presented arguments in a U.S. District Court hearing on the abrupt removal of the panels and exhibits from the site on Independence Mall in January 2026.
Additionally, McClellan is a member of the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force, which studies and develops reparations proposals and programs for Black Philadelphians whose ancestors endured chattel slavery and Jim Crow in the United States.
McClellan’s work has been published in the Clinical Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Boston University Law Review, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Fordham Urban Law Journal, and the Columbia Journal of Race & Law, among others.
She is a frequent media commentator on issues of civil rights and education policy, and her opinion writing has appeared in The Hill and The Baltimore Sun.
A Philadelphia native, McClellan graduated from Central High School and spent two years teaching middle school in Philadelphia with Teach for America. She earned her undergraduate degree from Yale and an MSEd from Penn’s Graduate School of Education. After returning to Yale to earn a JD, McClellan clerked for the Honorable Gregory M. Sleet, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court and the Honorable Andre M. Davis, Senior Judge for the Fourth Circuit.