Cara Gardner is a Co-Executive Director and Founding Partner at Amara Legal. She is passionate about serving Amara's clients, and has years of experience as an attorney and an advocate for survivors of violence. Prior to joining Amara, Ms. Gardner was a litigation association at Ropes & Gray LLP, where she had an extensive pro bono practice representing women who were survivors of violence in D.C. Ms. Gardner previously clerked in the Middle District of North Carolina after she earned her J.D. with honors from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2009.
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During law school, she was the President of the Domestic Violence Action Project, a published Articles Editor of the Law Review, as well as a member of the nationally-ranked Trial Team and the Juvenile Justice Clinic. As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she served as a rape crisis counselor, and a counselor for juvenile delinquents. Ms. Gardner is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia and New York.