A passion for close reading, Edmund Burke, and the power of logic shaped Jennifer Brooks Crozier’s path to becoming a lawyer and now fuels her volunteerism for Georgia Innocence Project. We sat down with her to learn more about her background, her work at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, and her pro bono experience supporting our case-screening efforts.
Pro bono partners are essential to our mission, and Jennifer and her team at Weil are among those helping to prevent and correct wrongful convictions in Georgia. Through a focused case screening project, her team is lending their expertise to review one case in depth—analyzing records and helping identify whether a strong claim of innocence may move forward toward potential representation.
If you’re curious about what Georgia Innocence Project’s pro bono partners make possible, exploring a legal career with impact, or simply interested in the people behind our work, read on!
The following is an edited interview.
Georgia Innocence Project: Tell us about you, and your work, and how you started with Georgia Innocence Project.
Jennifer Brooks Crozier: I’m a partner in Weil’s Complex Commercial Litigation practice, and my practice focuses on the intersection between complex contracts and complex technologies. So I litigate high-stakes, very complicated disputes between big businesses that are arguing over a contract, usually involving some sort of complex technology – whether it be semiconductors or satellite services or drugs and medical devices or information technology. It really runs the gamut. It sounds exciting, and it is, it is, but what it really is at bottom is closely reading and interpreting contractual language. I studied English and history in college and grad school, and I love reading fiction and poetry, and contracts, believe it or not, are a lot like that. You can read a contract in the same way you can read any text, and it’s what I like to do. And I have some aptitude for it which I think is one of the reasons why I’ve gotten as far as I have in my practice. I do love it. I work with many large teams of associates here at Weil. I feel so fortunate to do it because our associates and counsel work extraordinarily hard, are really dedicated, and intellectually curious lawyers.
So how did I get involved with Georgia Innocence Project? I’m so grateful I did. We have a pro bono director here at Weil. Her name is Miriam Buhl. And she along with one of our retired partners Steven Reiss who is very involved with the Innocence Project, began this partnership between Weil and Georgia Innocence Project. Our firm is really committed to the Innocence Project for all of the reasons you can imagine. We really love supporting this work. We think it’s so incredibly important. I think lawyers have this deep passion for justice and rectitude. Most people who are lawyers have this profound sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, and we want assertions to be based on actual evidence, and we want evidence to be reliable. And so for all of those reasons including just the outstanding work that Georgia Innocence Project does, we wanted to further this relationship. So Miriam and Steve began speaking with Tiffany (Bush) about the ways in which we could help Georgia Innocence Project. And you had a case for us, which was the case we began working on, the file of the Applicant, and asked if I would be willing to help lead a team of associates to review and make a recommendation based on that file. And of course I jumped at the opportunity.
Georgia Innocence Project: Can you talk more about your pivot into law from English and history?
Jennifer Brooks Crozier: The truth is many litigators are scholarly types. Our profession is, I like to say, sort of a monastic profession in the sense that we sit at our computer, and we do a lot of reading and writing and thinking. We do a lot of talking as well but not as much as people think. I have graduate degrees in both English and history, and I started out as a teacher. My parents were both teachers. I admired them very much. And so I decided I would be a teacher as well. Many of the writers we were reading in my history class were early American thinkers and many were lawyers. I remember being really inspired by their writing and the ideals they were espousing. In his speech to Parliament on reconciliation with the colonies, Edmund Burke effectively says we shouldn’t mess with the colonies because every third person in the colonies is a lawyer, and lawyers “augur misgovernment on the breeze.” And I thought, I want to augur misgovernment on the breeze. That sounds like a great thing to be able to do. Here’s Edmund Burke, this incredibly intelligent and persuasive and compelling Member of Parliament, telling his colleagues that we really need to let the colonies go because they will never give up, they will never allow themselves to be tyrannized because they’re all lawyers. I just thought that was so incredible. I get chills now even thinking about it. So for that reason, I decided I might like to go to law school. It took me a little while. I really loved teaching. I miss it still. So I do a fair amount of teaching at Weil. But that’s in the end why I decided to go to law school because I was inspired by Edmund Burke and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison and other Founding Fathers. I ended up becoming a litigator because I get to spend my days reading and writing and thinking. It’s not so much auguring misgovernment on the breeze, which is why I try to make pro bono a significant part of my practice. That’s where I get to tap into some of the ideals that were important to me when I was a young, aspiring lawyer.
Georgia Innocence Project: Can you tell a little bit more about those ideals? You mentioned being very inspired by your parents. Do you feel like this sense of justice and rightness and wanting to put your time and energy into that in this way comes from a specific place? Is that your family or?
Jennifer Brooks Crozier: My parents were extraordinarily hard workers and wonderful teachers. They taught me in addition to all of their students, and I’m very grateful for everything I learned, and the tremendous example they set for me. Teachers are undervalued in our society, and I remember my mom and dad working all day and all night, thinking about their students, grading papers, planning curriculums—they were so invested in their work. And it was really hard work so I think what I got from my parents more than anything else is a substantial work ethic. In terms of this feeling of justice, I think justice is logical because justice at bottom is what is fair. When you encounter something that’s illogical, for me, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. I need to correct it right away or at least try to. And I think that’s why I do what I do, including the pro bono work. Because these wrongful convictions are incredibly unjust. If you read the trial transcripts, if you read the files, and the Applicant’s file is a great example, you realize this investigation was not approached in a logical way. The assessment of the evidence was not approached in a logical way. There were real evidentiary gaps here. There were conclusions drawn that weren’t based on adequate evidence. It’s really reprehensible that someone could lose their liberty based on a process that is so inequitable and illogical. It seems like we ought to try to correct these abuses as often as we possibly can.
I think that fairness and logic go hand in hand. And when we encounter illogic and when we encounter unfairness, that’s where many lawyers live to do good work. That’s why when we’re confronted with so much illogical, irrational, and unfair behavior today, it’s hard to exist on a day to day basis without feeling like there are so many battles to fight. I’m sure Georgia Innocence Project must feel that way also, just the issues with Georgia’s criminal justice system and trying to correct for those. That really resonated with me and really resonated with us, which is one of the reasons why we really value this partnership.
Georgia Innocence Project: Can you speak more about why Georgia Innocence Project in particular?
Jennifer Brooks Crozier: It’s not only the nature of the work that Georgia Innocence Project brings to us, it feels really meaty and substantive to me. The first file we reviewed, I think the trial transcript alone was 2,700 pages long. We had a real opportunity to immerse ourselves in this trial that took place 40 years ago. I was really gratified by the opportunity to take time with this very complex set of documents, come to understand them, and work with Georgia Innocence Project in deciding whether to move forward or not. So that’s part of it, the kind of work.
I think, too, my understanding is that Georgia Innocence Project is still sort of getting off the ground. You have a relatively large backlog of applications, and we really wanted to help be part of the solution to that backlog of applications. Georgia Innocence Project has been making a lot of adjustments to its process, and they offered us an opportunity to consult with them and give our recommendations in terms of process, so that was really interesting and gratifying to us as well. We’ve really loved working with Tiffany (Bush) and the team. They are great and have so much to offer. And I’ve learned so much. I’m not a criminal lawyer, I’m not an expert in criminal law, but I’ve learned so much through this process.
Georgia Innocence Project: Could you speak about something you found surprising or that you’ve learned in this experience that might be important to share with the general public?
Jennifer Brooks Crozier: We thought the Applicant’s case presented a very compelling case for innocence. There was absolutely no forensic evidence tying him to the crime in question. There was a really compelling alternative suspect, but they focused on the Applicant to the exclusion of almost any other suspect or evidence.
And this is what you all think about all the time. This is why you do what you do. You encounter cases like this all the time. This experience really brought home a sense of injustice to us and makes us want to do this even more and redouble our efforts to try to find a path for the Applicant to innocence if there is one. There are real gaps that need to be filled, and it’s one of the reasons why we do what we do.
Georgia Innocence Project: Is there any last thing that you might want to say?
Jennifer Brooks Crozier: Thank you to you and Tiffany (Bush) and the whole team. We’ve loved working with them and meeting everyone and are so inspired by their hard work and perseverance. I also have to say thank you to my team. I have a big team of associates here who’ve worked really hard on this case and care a great deal about both the work and the Applicant. We couldn’t do it without them. And we’re hoping to make that team even bigger so that we can do more files and continue to grow our partnership.
For reasons beyond Georgia Innocence Project’s control, we were unable to move this applicant’s case beyond the case screening stage.
Our work to prevent and correct wrongful convictions is only possible because of the commitment of pro bono partners like Jennifer and her team. We’re honored to collaborate with so many dedicated firms and individuals.
Meet the other partners who support this mission through our Annual Giving Campaign.
Interested in pro bono opportunities? Reach out to us at gip@georgiainnocenceproject.org.