For all of her professional career, Caroline has advocated for those who have struggled with the system.  As a teenager, Caroline’s passion for the vulnerable led her to establish a teen court, convincing judges and lawyers to divert eligible young offenders from the more rigid criminal justice system to an alternative program aimed at providing opportunities for juveniles to succeed.  In college at Clemson University, she assumed leadership roles in which she urged her classmates to participate in social and political causes to address pressing needs.  In law school at the University of North Carolina, Caroline led the law school’s Innocence Project, its Death Penalty Project, and she participated in its domestic violence advocacy program.  Upon graduation from law school in 2008, these experiences convinced Caroline that she should follow her professional passion and she became a public defender in Raleigh, North Carolina.  She quickly rose in the ranks to become one of the office’s most experienced lawyers in felony cases.  Caroline’s career as a public defender lasted over a decade and included more than a dozen first degree murder cases, several second degree murder cases, some high-level sex offense cases, and hundreds of other felonies and misdemeanors.  She has tried dozens of cases in front of both a judge and jury.  Since relocating to Hawai’i, Caroline has worked in federal court in both capital and non-capital matters, helping to prepare some of the state’s most complex cases for trial. 

In addition to her clients, Caroline has earned the respect of her fellow lawyers and of law professors, teaching continuing education programs to her colleagues and making guest appearances in law school classrooms.  Judges and prosecutors recognize Caroline not only as a formidable advocate for her clients, but also as a lawyer of the utmost integrity.