Kathleen Creamer currently serves as the Managing Attorney of the Family Advocacy Unit at Community Legal Services. In this role, she represents parents in all stages of dependency proceedings, including adjudication, permanency reviews, termination of parental rights trials, and appeals.
From 2012-2014, Kathleen served as a Stoneleigh Fellow at Community Legal Services, where she worked at the local and state levels to reduce barriers to reunification for children of incarcerated parents. Previously, she led a coalition that developed and lobbied for the successful passage of the 2010 Healthy Birth for Incarcerated Women Act, which curtailed the practice of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth in Pennsylvania’s jails and prisons. Prior to joining Community Legal Services in 2006, Kathleen served as Director of Legal Services at Our Place, DC, a program that provides supportive services to women during and after incarceration, and as a law clerk to the Honorable J. Michael Ryan of the DC Superior Court Family Court.
Kathleen is an active member of the Dependent Children of Incarcerated Parents Workgroup, and she previously served on the Joint State Government Commission’s Statewide Legislative Advisory Committee on Children of Incarcerated Parents. She has trained case workers and legal professionals locally and nationally on best practices for engaging incarcerated parents in the child welfare system. She is the recipient of the 2011 Women’s Way Unsung Heroine Award and was recognized as a 2012 Legal Intelligencer Lawyer on the Fast Track.
Kathleen holds a BA in philosophy and sociology from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.
