Tina V Fernandez

TINA V. FERNANDEZ is currently the director of the newly established Pro Bono Program at the University of Texas School of Law, whose vision is that UT Law students engage in pro bono work to increase access to justice and develop a lifetime commitment to providing legal services to those in need. Ms. Fernandez is also a member of the UT Law legal research and writing faculty. Prior to serving in this capacity, she was the managing director of Alumni Engagement and Infrastructure for Teach For America, a national nonprofit dedicated to closing the achievement gap in this country. In that role, she worked to engage Teach For America’s then 14,000 alumni through fundraising and volunteer recruitment. During her tenure, Teach For America engaged a record percentage of alumni — over 40 percent in 2009. Prior to joining Teach For America’s staff, she was the associate director of career services at the University of Texas School of Law. In this position, she worked primarily with students interested in pursuing public interest legal careers and served on the national board of PSLawnet, a national clearinghouse of public interest organizations and opportunities. From 1999 to 2004, Ms. Fernandez worked as a litigation associate at Fulbright & Jaworski LLP. During that time, she handled several pro bono cases, representing indigent women in divorce cases and children in abuse and neglect cases. She also served on the firm’s diversity committee. She earned her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law where she was a recipient of a Human Rights Fellowship Award. She was also a member of the Human Rights Law Journal and contributed to A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual, a handbook of legal rights for incarcerated individuals. Before attending law school, she was a Teach For America ’94 corps member and spent two years as a bilingual elementary teacher in the South Bronx. She graduated from Harvard University in 1994 and is from the Rio Grande Valley. She currently serves as chair of the Teach For America Austin Alumni Association and vice-chair of the Hispanic Bar Association of Austin Charitable Foundation. She is also a founding member of FuturoFund Austin, a philanthropic organization dedicated to supporting nonprofits that have an impact on Latino communities in Central Texas.