Laura Caldwell

Laura Caldwell is the bestselling author of 14 novels as well as the acclaimed nonfiction work Long Way Home: A Young Man Lost in the System and the Two Women Who Found Him (Free Press, Simon & Schuster). Her short fiction has appeared in several award-winning anthologies. Caldwell formerly practiced as civil trial attorney and now is a professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

In 2008, she founded Life After Innocence at Loyola, to aid persons wrongly convicted. Since its founding, Caldwell has served as LAI’s director, working with dozens of staff members and law students who advocate for innocent people adversely affected by the criminal justice system. They help these exonerees re-enter society and enable them to reclaim their rights as citizens through individualized legal and support services and wider-reaching public policy initiatives. LAI helps them find homes to live in, connects them with jobs, teaches them the basic necessities for functioning in present-day society and assists them in expunging their records and pursuing compensation from the state. LAI is now a model for similar projects around the world.

Caldwell is grateful to the exonerees for having the courage to tell their stories so unflinchingly, and to the writers, who gave of themselves to ensure the book is the best it can be. She also thanks Leslie S. Klinger for his tireless efforts in co-editing Anatomy of Innocence.