Tess Stapleton

In addition to her tutoring work, Tess has extensive research and legal experience. She currently works at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children in Oakland, where she supports the organization's Prison Letter Project and legal advocacy. She reviews correspondence from incarcerated individuals, researching relevant laws and policies, and contributing research to the organization's impact litigation class-action work. 

While at Stanford, much of Tess’ academic work focused on constitutional law, criminal justice, and the historical development of American legal institutions. She served as a research assistant at Stanford's SPARQ Lab, contributing to projects examining policing, criminal justice reform, and police-community relations. She also worked as a research assistant at the Hoover Institution's Center for Revitalizing American Institutions on research related to civic education, political polarization, and American democracy. Her earlier experience includes an internship at the Bridgeport Public Defender's Office, where she attended court proceedings, conducted arraignment interviews, and reviewed police body-camera footage. She also completed a practicum with Stanford Law School's Center for Racial Justice focused on California criminal justice policies. 

Tess has experience providing both one-on-one instruction and live group teaching in Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. Her own LSAT journey convinced her that LSAT performance is not fixed and that students can make substantial gains when concepts are explained in a way that fits how they think. Tess identifies each student's specific weaknesses and builds a strategy around them. If Tess notices her approach isn't clicking for a student, she has alternative methods ready to use until concepts land. She also creates individualized lessons, practice problems, and study materials to reinforce concepts outside of sessions. Tess is especially passionate about working with students who feel discouraged by the LSAT or who believe they are simply “not good” at standardized tests. She approaches every session with patience, transparency, and a strong emphasis on helping students understand why they are missing questions rather than simply memorizing techniques. 

Tess credits her background in competitive athletics with shaping much of her tutoring approach: progress comes from consistent, deliberate practice, close attention to weaknesses, and learning to perform confidently under pressure.

A fun fact about Tess is that she is working with her coaches at Stanford to train for the next Olympic Trials in the 400-meter hurdles. She also did competitive parkour when she was younger.