Helen Anne Gaebler

Helen Anne Gaebler serves as a Lecturer and Senior Research Attorney at the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law within the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. She directs the law school's Pro Bono Parole Project and serves as director of Community Engagement for the University's Initiative for Law, Societies, and Justice. Ms. Gaebler is an active member of the Austin/Travis County Reentry Roundtable and the Texas Supreme Court Children's Commission Parent Resource Work Group.

Her educational background includes a JD and BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior professional experience encompasses Assistant Director roles at the University of Arizona's Frances McClelland Institute, service as Assistant Attorney General in Arizona, trial attorney work at the U.S. Department of Justice, litigation practice at WilmerHale in Washington D.C., and a clerkship with Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Heffernan.

Ms. Gaebler's research and teaching focus on criminal legal system reform, with specialized expertise in parole procedures, reentry programming, and child welfare law intersections. She has taught courses including Reentry Challenges & Practices, Topics in Reentry, and Child Welfare Law & Policy since 2014, with upcoming spring 2025 instruction confirmed. Her work gained national attention through USA Today and Dallas Morning News coverage discussing Texas parole backlogs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through the Pro Bono Parole Project, she recruits and supervises law students representing parole-eligible women in central Texas correctional facilities. Her community engagement extends to providing research support for statewide reentry organizations and contributing to policy discussions via the Texas Supreme Court Children's Commission.