Trevi Grant appointed as Assistant Dean of Student Career Success and Employer Relations

Trevi Grant knows that life is often full of twists and turns.

Born and raised in Phoenix, she was working as a social worker when she realized she wanted to make a bigger impact. That took her to the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law for her Juris Doctor. After practicing law for 13 years, she took a job as the CEO of a nonprofit organization that worked with first-generation college students before getting hired at ASU Law in 2018. She now serves as assistant dean of student career success and employer relations 

“One of the things I really like about working with students is that it is like a fork in the road,” said Grant. “This is the time in their life where, depending on what happens, what career path they take, what opportunities they’re exposed to or take, their life can end up in a totally different direction than they thought it was going to, which is sort of what happened to me in law school.”

That commitment to making a difference was ingrained in her from a young age, she said. Both of Grant’s parents were lawyers; her mother also started as a social worker before pivoting to law. 

Grant’s mother, Judge Sarah Grant, also has a personal connection to ASU Law’s namesake: she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals spot vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when she was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Grant will continue to make a difference in the lives of students in her new role. She will focus on expanding job opportunities for law graduates outside of Arizona, including in Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles, where ASU Law now has locations. She also has a passion for connecting students with judicial clerkships, as judges often become lifelong friends and mentors to their clerks. 

Over the past six years, Grant said that ASU Law has placed students in more than 505 unique externships. 

“It’s the only time in your life where you can jump into a job for 4 months, decide if you like it and then leave,” she said. “You have the added benefit that it makes you more employable because you have skills that you don’t get in law school about how to actually practice law.”

She hopes that students take the initiative to visit her department and see what she and her team can do for them. 

“I want students to know that my entire department has an open-door policy,” she said. “We want to see students, we want to help students. Sometimes you think you have to go a certain way and what you end up discovering is there is more than one way to get to that place.”

Written by Lindsay Walker