Jennifer Merrigan

Jennifer Merrigan is an attorney at Phillips Black and has been a capital defense attorney since graduating from law school in 2004. Her training and background are in capital mitigation, and she has been appointed and has consulted in state and federal habeas corpus, pre-authorization, and trial cases as a mitigation specialist and as counsel.

She is a former staff attorney and Acting Director of the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, a non-profit law firm in Kansas City, Missouri. She is an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University Law School and Washington University School of Law, where she teaches a death penalty clinical practicum. She has presented at national conferences on capital mitigation and litigation. She helped research and develop the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams in Death Penalty Cases, 36 Hofstra L. Rev. 677 (Spring 2008). She received the 2010 Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s “Atticus Finch Award” for her advocacy and the 2011 Missouri State Fair Blue Ribbon for her fruit pie.