Kelsi Brown Corkran

Kelsi Brown Corkran is a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Constitutional Governance.  She also serves as the Supreme Court Director for the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy & Protection at Georgetown Law, where she specializes in defending constitutional rights before the United States Supreme Court.  Kelsi has served as lead counsel and presented oral argument before the Court in numerous human rights cases, including Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, on behalf of asylum seekers challenging the government’s turnback policy at ports of entry along the southern border; Trump v. CASA, on behalf of the immigration advocacy groups challenging President Trump’s Executive Order eliminating birthright citizenship; Grants Pass v. Johnson, on behalf of a class of involuntarily homeless residents challenging a local ordinance criminalizing homelessness; Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, on behalf of a disability rights advocate seeking accessibility information under the Americans with Disabilities Act; Torres v. Madrid, on behalf of a police shooting victim who asserted a Fourth Amendment excessive force claim; and City of Hays v. Vogt, on behalf of a civil rights plaintiff who asserted a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause after he was prosecuted based on a confession he made under threat by his state employer. 

Kelsi previously served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  Among other previous positions, she was as an attorney with the Civil Appellate Staff at the U.S. Department of Justice and in the Communications Office of the White House’s Executive Office of the President, where she assisted with judicial nominations, including the confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. and M.P.P. from the University of Chicago.

Kelsi is visiting TriCon for the 2026-2027 academic year.