Courtney Petersen-Rhead

Courtney Petersen-Rhead is a program associate at IAALS. In this role, she works across IAALS’ programmatic areas—including legal education and the profession, allied legal professionals, civil justice reform, the judiciary, and legal education and the profession—and is a core member of IAALS’ research team. She values the organization’s rigorous, mixed-methods methodology and enjoys contributing to research that advances evidence-based, practical improvements within the civil justice system.

Courtney joined IAALS in 2024 after teaching at the University of Michigan Law School and co-creating the school’s Human Trafficking Lab. In that role, she guided law and graduate students from more than 13 disciplines in problem-solving and innovation, creating multidisciplinary, inter-organizational, and collaborative solutions to socio-legal issues. Courtney is passionate about advocating for multidisciplinary approaches and creative thinking when addressing challenges within our legal system, recognizing that the law alone may sometimes offer incomplete solutions.

Prior to teaching at Michigan Law, Courtney completed a post-JD fellowship conducting human rights-based research on migration in Southern Africa and the Southern Indian Ocean region, notably in Réunion, Mayotte, and South Africa, and working with the Legal Resources Centre-Cape Town.

Courtney received her JD from the University of Michigan Law School, her MSW from the University of Michigan School of Social Work, and her BA in Sociology and Religious Studies from Grinnell College. She is currently pursuing an MA in Research Methods and Statistics at the University of Denver to deepen her expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methodology.