Ellie Frazier, ABF/JPB Early Career Scholar

Ellie Frazier

ABF/JPB Access to Justice Research Initiative Early Career Scholar

Ellie Frazier (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research and teaching focus on comparative politics, social movements, and public law. Her dissertation project focuses on the political history of community advice offices in South Africa and the implications for expanding the legal profession beyond lawyers in other contexts. Her work has received support from the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright Commission. She received her M.A. in International Political Economy and Development from Fordham University and her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Virginia. She’s taught courses at Fordham University, UCSC, and Freie Universität in Berlin and previously worked in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and South Africa with USAID and Freedom House.

Research Focus

Examining the argument that democratic institutions simultaneously expand and constrict access to justice services by empowering civil society to provide assistance while also reinforcing narrow definitions of law and the legal profession. The South African story can provide timely insights for those creating and supporting non-lawyer access to justice interventions in the U.S.