Raman has first-chaired over 30 criminal trials to judge and jury, winning acquittals in her first eight jury trials. She has represented clients in cases ranging from Driving While Intoxicated to Murder. Raman brings a deep commitment to issues affecting low-income people to the firm. She has served low-income people both as an assistant public defender in Dallas County and as an attorney at Texas Appleseed, where she spearheaded efforts to launch the nation’s first public defender office dedicated to indigent persons with mental illness.

Education:

• University of Texas at Austin (B.A. in PLAN II with honors and with special honors in English, 1991)
• New York University School of Law (J.D., 1995)
• Finalist and recipient of the Albert Podell Award for Best Oralist in the Orison S. Marden Moot Court Competition, 1994-1995.

Clerkships:

• Briefing Attorney for Judge Lawrence Meyers, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, 1995-1997.
• Law Clerk to Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn, Northern District of Texas, 2000-2001.

Member:

• State Bar of Texas
• State Bar of California
• Travis County Women Lawyers Association.

• Co-author, Texas Fair Defense Act Implementation, Report No. 1, Quality of Initial County Plans Governing Indigent Defense in Adult Criminal Cases, 2002.
• Primary author, first edition, Mental Illness, Your Client and the Criminal Law, a Handbook for Attorneys Who Represent Persons with Mental Illness, 2005.
• Co-author, Editorial, Dallas Morning News, Jails cope poorly with the mentally ill, 2002.
• Co-author, Editorial, Dallas Morning News, Texas takes significant step in indigent defense, 2002.
• Author, Editorial, Dallas Morning News, A drugged defendant can’t participate in defense, 2003.

Raman is President of the Board of the Texas Fair Defense Project.

Raman’s parents were born and raised in India, but she had never traveled to India until she was in law school. After her first year, she decided she did not want to see India in small snippets; so she took a full year away from law school, worked the first six months to save travel money, and spent the second six months backpacking all around India—from the northwest state of Punjab where her parents were raised to the southern tip of Kanyakumari, and many points in between.