During the summer of her freshman year at Louisiana State University, Cierra de la Garza accepted an internship with a private law firm in Brooklyn, working for a seasoned trial attorney. Before she could settle in, she was handed a caseload of legal documents and found herself sitting across from a teenager who was in trouble with the law.
“His birthday is the same day as mine, the same year and everything,” said Cierra, client advocate at Parole Project. “We were both 19 years old, and on opposite sides of the glass, and I made the comment that we had the same birthday, and at that moment, I was thinking about the way our lives take direction. He was driving with a friend who didn’t use his turn signal, and that friend had a gun on him and everyone in the car was arrested. His life changed forever. And I just thought that he was doing the same thing I was doing. Hanging out with friends. He was in college and working a summer job just like me. And I just thought of the parallels of our lives.”
When she returned to LSU for her sophomore year, she felt pulled toward legal work. She changed her major from international relations and global diplomacy to political science. She also minored in history and added an additional minor – race, gender and ethnicity. She returned to Brooklyn the following summer for another internship, this time working on a homicide trial. The defendant, who had spent five years at Rikers Island – a sprawling 413-acre prison complex and home to New York City’s largest jail – was ultimately acquitted.
“We got him a full acquittal, and he got to go home that day,” she said. “But we get a call the next day and he said he can’t get an ID or anything, and it just reinforced this whole idea of what happens post-conviction and why aren’t we talking about that.”
When she returned to LSU for her final semester of school, she decided to get involved locally and asked a professor how she could help. Her professor recommended that she reach out to Parole Project, and she emailed Kelly Garrett, deputy director of client services, to volunteer teaching finance and literacy classes.
She taught a class every week and loved it.
When a position became available as a client advocate in the Fall of 2024, Cierra was ready.
“I knew I wanted to work for them and had asked them in the summer if anything was available and they said no, but I gave them my resume anyway,” she said. “I have always been confident when it’s something I believe in. I’m willing to put myself out there. I knew I wanted to stay in Baton Rouge and work for Parole Project, and I got the job offer the day after I got an interview at a law firm.”
Executive Director Andrew Hundley said Cierra was an immediate fit for Parole Project’s team.
“From the moment Cierra joined our team, she made an immediate and lasting impact,” Hundley said. “The dedication and compassion she brought to the client advocate position has set a standard that will be hard to match. We have no doubt that she will bring the same excellence to her future legal career.”
As the client advocate Cierra spends a lot of time traveling to prisons across southeast Louisiana, interviewing potential clients and learning their stories.
“I know I’m young, but I’m not naïve,” she said. “I can read people pretty well, and I don’t sugar coat things. And to hear people talk about their aspirations after spending 30 or 40 years in prison has really made me appreciate the little things more.”
Cierra is 22 years old, with long brown hair and an infectious laugh. She is a physical media collector and shares a pile of old Angolite Magazines, the critically acclaimed, award-winning journal from Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola.
She is fiercely independent, worldly, and exceptionally intelligent. She is confident in her intelligence, and when asked about it, she says, “My intellect is my favorite thing about me.” Her curiosity and wisdom give her undeniable magnetism. She exudes them with humility, never seeming arrogant or self-important and effortlessly balances the roles of both teacher and student.
Her dad was in the Army, and while she was born in Wyoming, she spent her formative years growing up in Vicenza, Italy, but also lived in Fort Polk, Louisiana, South Korea, Germany, El Paso, Texas, and Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she graduated high school. She speaks fluent Italian and Spanish.
When she was young, she was drawn to documentaries on the process of justice and loved reading books about history. She used to skip recess to read in the library. She got lost in books about ancient Egypt and spent so much time in the library that the librarian created a volunteer position for her.
“She had to make up that position for me because I technically wasn’t allowed to be there during recess, and she knew it was my refuge,” she said. She always loved to be around adults and understood the complexities of life at an early age.
“I was young when I realized the world wasn’t black and white but was different shades of gray,” Cierra said. “Very early on, maybe 12 or 13, I realized that two things can be true at once. We all deserve the respect to acknowledge those truths.”
In July, she will leave her position at Parole Project to attend law school at Rutgers School of Law, but hopes to return to Baton Rouge and Parole Project to continue her work helping people with their second chances.
“I’m a firm believer that community is our biggest asset,” she said. “I have traveled all over the world and have never seen humanity work the way it works here.”
