Kerry O’Neill teaches Criminal Procedure: Investigations, Advanced Evidence: Arguments & Objections, Appellate Advocacy: Moot Court Competitions, Deposition Skills, and Trial Advocacy at UCLA School of Law. Kerry also serves as the faculty advisor to the Moot Court Honors Board. Kerry previously served as the inaugural Director of Judicial Clerkships at the law school.

Before joining UCLA, Kerry was an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. She prosecuted numerous criminal cases over a decade of service as a federal prosecutor, including Ponzi schemes targeting immigrant communities, health care fraud cases defrauding Medicare of millions of dollars, and mortgage and tax fraud cases. For the bulk of her time at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kerry was an appellate specialist in the Criminal Appellate Section, where she briefed numerous appeals, argued 18 cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and prepared other prosecutors for Ninth Circuit oral arguments. Kerry also trained and supervised prosecutors, serving first as Deputy Chief in the General Crimes Section and then as Deputy Chief in the Criminal Appellate Section. Prior to her time at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kerry was Counsel at O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles.

Kerry earned her J.D. in 2002 from Stanford Law School and her B.A. from Princeton University in 1998 in History with a concentration in East Asian Studies. Following law school, Kerry clerked for the Honorable Dorothy W. Nelson on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kerry is deeply committed to community and civic affairs. She currently serves as a Trustee of the Norton Simon Museum and as a Board Member of Chrysalis, a job empowerment non-profit helping homeless and justice-involved individuals find stability and employment. Kerry is also a lifetime member of the Langston Bar Association. In 2020, in response to national calls for police reform, Kerry was appointed to serve on the Los Angeles Police Commission Advisory Committee on Building Trust and Equity.