Beth Caldwell joined LDF as Assistant Counsel in 2024. Before joining LDF, Beth was an appellate public defender at the Center for Appellate Litigation in New York City, where she represented clients in their direct appeals from their criminal convictions in Manhattan and the Bronx. In People v. Garcia, 216 A.D.3d 438 (1st Dep’t 2023), Beth won a reversal of her client’s conviction based on the trial court’s improper instructions to the jury. She also negotiated the vacatur and dismissal of another client’s convictions based on violations of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).
Beth previously taught courses on appellate advocacy at New York University School of Law with Judge Harry Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Berle M. Schiller on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and to the Honorable Kermit Lipez on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Beth graduated magna cum laude from NYU Law, where she received a full-tuition Root-Tilden-Kern public interest scholarship and was elected to the Order of the Coif. She was awarded the George P. Foulk Memorial Prize for overall achievement. Beth also graduated magna cum laude from Brown University. She received the Jin Prize for her scholarship and public service and was awarded the Christian Yegen Thesis Prize for her history honors thesis on the financial system that undergirded the expansion of American slavery. A native of Augusta, Georgia, Beth began her career working on economic and racial justice issues in Durham, North Carolina.
Beth is admitted to the New York state bar and the Southern District of New York.
