Rachel Gassert

Rachel directs Street Law’s Community Empowerment and Justice Programs, overseeing partnerships with government agencies, corporations, foundations, and community-based organizations that equip people with practical legal knowledge and life skills to understand, navigate, and influence the systems that shape their lives.

She believes that meaningful justice reform must center the voices and needs of the people most affected by the system, especially young people.

Rachel has nearly two decades of experience in the youth justice field, including policy advocacy, systems reform, philanthropy, juvenile defense advocacy, and government service with the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. She has helped pass legislation in Louisiana dramatically restricting the use of solitary confinement in juvenile facilities and launched a youth-centered case planning process in Maryland that prioritized what young people said they needed to succeed.

Rachel was awarded the Professor Lucy McGough Juvenile Justice Award by the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 2019.

Rachel holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in developmental psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University.