Virtual Book Club: November 2022

Jeanne Bishop is a public defender, human rights advocate, writer, speaker, teacher and mom. Since the 1990 murders of her sister (Nancy Bishop Langert), her brother-in-law and their unborn baby, Jeanne has advocated for forgiveness and reconciliation, violence prevention and reform of the criminal justice system to make it more merciful. She is the author of Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy, and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer. (Westminster John Knox Press 2015) and Grace From the Rubble: Two Fathers’ Road to Reconciliation After the Oklahoma City Bombing (Zondervan 2020).

Her other written work includes chapters in academic books, law review articles, and opinion pieces in newspapers, magazines and online publications. She speaks nationally and internationally. She has appeared in documentaries on the death penalty and two TEDx talks, and on radio and television, including a CBS 48 Hours program, “Road to Redemption.” Jeanne attended law school at Northwestern and Yale and has worked ever since her sister’s murder at the Office of the Cook County Public Defender in Chicago, where she is a felony trial attorney. She teaches trial advocacy at Northwestern and serves on the advisory board of its Center on Wrongful Convictions. She is the proud and grateful mom of two sons, Brendan and Stephen.