Kimberly Ambrose is a Teaching Professor and directs the Tools for Social Change: Race and Justice Clinic, a clinic she founded in 2011 focusing on racial disparities in the juvenile justice system. She joined the clinic faculty part time in 2001 and full time in 2005, as supervising attorney for the Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic. Professor Ambrose also created and taught the Legislative Advocacy Clinic.
Before joining the faculty, she was a public defender representing indigent adults and juveniles in both child welfare and criminal proceedings and worked as a resource attorney for the Washington Defender Association, providing training, technical assistance, and resources to public defense attorneys around Washington state. After she graduated from law school, Professor Ambrose clerked for U.S. District Judge David Ezra in the District of Hawaii.
In 2009, Professor Ambrose was a Resident Fellow for the Open Society Justice Institute in Beijing, China, working on developing criminal defense clinics in several universities across China. She has also worked extensively with newly-established clinics in Indonesia, in partnership with the UW Asian Law Center.
In 2012, Professor Ambrose received the Shanara Gilbert Emerging Clinician Award from the Association of American Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education.
She serves on the Washington Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Juvenile Justice Subcommittee of the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission.