Professor Butler's scholarship examines how the law, particularly the U.S. Constitution, protects or hinders the survival and resistance strategies of marginalized groups.

 

She has engaged in state and federal civil litigation related to police misconduct, family law, criminal record expungement, and more. In 2014, she worked as an attorney with the Law Office of Victor Glasberg & Associates, an Alexandria, Virginia based federal civil rights firm. In 2015, she clerked for a Federal Magistrate Judge in her home state of South Dakota. In 2016, Professor Butler returned to the Washington, DC area to represent and advocate for policy change alongside sex workers and survivors of trafficking at the Amara Legal Center as an Attorney and Director of Policy. In 2019, Professor Butler served as Director of Capacity Building and Systems Change with the Center for Survivor Agency and Justice, a national non-profit working at the intersection of domestic/sexual violence and economic security.