Alumni Spotlight – Amber Kaset
A Fair Shake
UT alumna Amber Kaset (’02) founded and runs a private investigations agency in Nashville, AK Investigations, specializing in criminal defense investigations, primarily for the indigent. AK Investigations works with many clients who have been accused of murder and other high-level felonies, working to ensure they get a fair trial. Most of their clients are facing severe prison sentences, some life without parole, some the death penalty. Some of them are already on death row. Kaset has been running AK Investigations and is recognized as a top specialist in guilt innocence work and mitigation (life history) investigations in Nashville and across the country.
“College Scholars was amazing for me,” Kaset said. “It really gave me the chance to explore my interests, which ultimately resulted in the career I have now. My focus was Spanish and International Studies in Business. I did a Spanish major, a year abroad in Spain, a business minor, a lot of photography and French courses, and a thesis on Basque nationalism. For my thesis, I used my knowledge of Spanish and photography to create my project… along with the curiosity that College Scholars allowed me to have…to explore. I did interviews and research in Spain and spent a thousand hours piecing it together back at UT.”
Most College Scholars, particularly those who study abroad, develop a broader perspective on the world. In Spain, Kaset did interviews in the Basque region in nationalist bars, sidewalk cafes, and meeting places, with people in Madrid with very differing views (one even poolside at the university). At that time ETA, the left wing Basque separatist and nationalist organization, was still bombing and terrorizing. Were they truly guilty? Were they all terrorists? Those are difficult questions, but as Kaset recalls, “My College Scholars experience opened my eyes. Things aren’t so black and white in the world.”
Kaset’s first real job out of college was at the Nashville Public Defender’s Office. All she knew was that she wanted to use her Spanish and to help people. After seven years at that office as a criminal investigator, she opened her own agency that has a clear-cut mission, “to tell our client’s story and to give them a fair shake in an incredibly unjust system.” Now 10 years strong into running her company, Kaset has personally trained a team of investigators that she leads in her mission.