Daynard Public Interest Law Fellows Program

Past Daynard Public Interest Law Fellows

• 2023-2024

  Spring 2024 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow
  February 12-14, 2024

  Diala Shamas
  Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Monday, February 12, 2024 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser Hall, Northeastern University School of Law
  Lawyering for Palestinian Rights in These Times

  ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
  Wednesday, February 14, 2024 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser Hall, Northeastern University School of Law
  US War on Terror and the Suppression of Dissent

  Panelists:
  Naz Ahmad
  Staff Attorney, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR)

  Fatema Ahmed  
  Executive Director, Muslim Justice League

  Carl Williams
  Assistant Clinical Professor, Cornell Law School

  Moderator:
  Zinaida Miller
  Professor of Law and International Affairs, Northeastern University School of Law

  >> View the photo gallery

  >> Download the invitation

  >> Download the flyer

  Diala Shamas is a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), where she works on challenging government and law enforcement abuses perpetrated under the guise of national security, both in the US and abroad. Prior to joining CCR, Shamas was a clinical supervising attorney and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School and a senior staff attorney supervising the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility project at CUNY School of Law.

  Shamas has represented individuals who were approached for questioning by local and federal law enforcement, targeted for surveillance, placed on federal watch-lists or who have had immigration benefits withheld on national security grounds. She advises social justice movements and advocates facing suppression efforts. Shamas has also worked on a range of international human rights issues, including human rights and humanitarian law violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory, where she has lived and worked extensively, as well as refugee policies in Australia and Greece. She brings a community-oriented and client-centered approach to all of her work.

  Shamas received her undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, where she was an editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. She has been published by or appeared in major news outlets, including The New York Times, The Nation, DemocracyNow!, CNN.com, The Washington Post, NPR, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, This American Life and The Intercept.

  Co-sponsored by Northeastern Law’s:
  Center for Health Policy and Law (CHPL)
  Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE)
  Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR)
  Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration (CPIAC)

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  Fall 2023 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  

  October 2-4, 2023
  

  HEMA SARANG-SIEMINSKI ’05
  Deputy Director, Jane Doe Inc
  >> Download the invitation
  >> Download the flyer

  >> View photo gallery

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Monday, October 2, 2023 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser
  In The Muddy Spaces: On Collective Liberation and Our Work to End Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence

  ROUNDTABLE
  Wednesday, October 4, 2023 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser
  Moving the Mainstream Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Movements Toward Healing, Accountability and Abolition

  Panelists include:

  Rachel King
  Restorative Justice Practitioner, RK Resolution

  Lola Remy
  Director of Pro Bono Programs, Women’s Bar Foundation of Massachusetts

  Hema Sarang-Sieminski
  Deputy Director, Jane Doe Inc
  

  Morgan Wilson ’17
  Attorney and CEO, Wilson Consulting

  Moderator:

  Hayat Bearat
  Visiting Associate Professor; Interim Director, Domestic Violence Institute, Northeastern University School of Law 

  Hema Sarang-Sieminski is deputy director of Jane Doe Inc. (JDI), The Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. At JDI, she directs strategic legislative and systems change efforts and leads efforts to shift the field’s reliance on criminal legal and other punitive systems. Through a variety of work in this field for more than 20 years, Sarang-Sieminski has dedicated her career to creating opportunities for wholeness and dignity for survivors and their communities and is committed to approaches to ending sexual violence that address and challenge the intersections of various forms of oppression.

• 2022-2023

  Winter 2023 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  February 6-8, 2023
  Derecka Purnell
  Human Rights Lawyer and Author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom

  >> Download the invitation
  >> Download the flyer

  COMMUNITY CONVERSATION
  Monday, February 6, 2023 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM
  Lawyering and Organizing Toward Abolition

  A conversation between Derecka Purnell and Andrea James ’98, founder and executive director of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls

  ROUNDTABLE
  Wednesday, February 8, 2023 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM
  Abolition and the Future We Create Together
  >>View photo gallery

  Roundtable Panelists:

  Mallory Hanora

  Executive Director, Families for Justice as Healing

  Sashi James
  Director of Reimagining Communities, Families for Justice as Healing, National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls

  Walter Johnson
  Winthrop Professor of History and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

  Derecka Purnell
  Human Rights Lawyer, Researcher and Author

  Carlton E. Williams
  Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School

  Moderator:

  Professor Daniel Medwed
  University Distinguished Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University School of Law

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  Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, researcher and author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research and training in community based organizations through an abolitionist framework.

  As a Skadden Fellow, she helped to build the Justice Project at Advancement Project’s National Office, which focused on consent decrees, police and prosecutor accountability and jail closures. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Purnell co-created the COVID19 Policing Project at the Community Resource Hub for Safety Accountability. The project tracks police arrests, harassment, citations and other enforcement through public health orders related to the pandemic.

  Purnell received her JD from Harvard Law School, her BA from the University of Missouri- Kansas City, and studied public policy and economics at the University of California- Berkeley as a Public Policy and International Affairs Law Fellow. Her writing has been published widely, including in The Oxford Handbook of Race and Law in the United States (forthcoming), The Harvard Journal of African American Policy, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New York Magazine, Boston Review, Teen Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Purnell has lectured, studied and strategized around social movements across the United States, The Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Australia.

  She is currently a columnist at The Guardian and a scholar-in-residence at Columbia Law School.

  Fall 2022 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow

  September 19 – September 21, 2022
  Anjali Waikar ’05
  Operations Director, Litigation, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

  >> Download the postcard
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  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Monday, September 19, 2022 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser Hall
  On the Public Interest Path: Changing Lanes Along the Way

  ROUNDTABLE
  Wednesday, September 21, 2022 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser Hall
  Environmental Justice: Case Studies on Policy, Advocacy and Litigation Trends
  >> View photo gallery

  Roundtable Panelists:

  Deborah Jackson

  Managing Director, Northeastern Law’s Center for Law, Equity, and Race (CLEAR)

  
  Sofia Owen ’14
  Director of Environmental Justice Legal Services and Staff Attorney, Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE)

  Staci Rubin ’10
  Vice President, Environmental Justice, Conservation Law Foundation (CLF)

  Moderator:
  Lee Breckenridge
  Professor of Law Emeritus, Northeastern University School of Law
  

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  Anjali Waikar oversees legal operations for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an international nonprofit organization working to protect the public health and environment. Previously, Waikar was an attorney with NRDC’s Environmental Justice Team, working to advance health justice on behalf of vulnerable communities. Waikar was one of the original members of the litigation team that sued under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure Flint, Michigan, residents have safe drinking water.

  Waikar has dedicated her legal career to advancing the rights of the underserved. She worked at the ACLU of Massachusetts, focusing on immigrants’ rights and post-9/11 racial and ethnic profiling, and later Krokidas & Bluestein in Boston, where she represented and advised primarily nonprofit organizations regarding litigation; employment; health care; privacy and data security; education law; and other civil matters. Before law school, Waikar worked as a South Brooklyn Legal Services case handler, advocating for public benefits for low-income, HIV-infected individuals.

  Waikar is currently a Cook County Human Rights Commissioner. Waikar received her JD from Northeastern and her BA from Wesleyan University.

• 2021 – 2022

  Winter 2022 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  January 31 – February 2, 2022
  KEESHA GASKINS-NATHAN ’99
  Program Director, Democratic Practice–United States Program, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
  >> Download the invitation
  >> Download the poster

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Monday, January 31, 2022 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser
  The Old is Dead, But the New Not Yet Born: Voting Rights and Election Protection Battles Embedded in History and Opportunity

  ROUNDTABLE
  Wednesday, February 2, 2022 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser
  Democracy and Civil Rights: Defensive Struggles and Expansive Visions from the Local to the National
  >> View photo gallery

  *Participants:
  Katherine Grainger ’02
  Partner, Civitas Public Affairs Group

  Rahsaan Hall ’98 | @rahsaandhall
  Former Director, Racial Justice Program of the ACLU of Massachusetts

  *Northeastern Law mourns the loss of Lauren Sampson,  a colleague and friend to many in our community. A senior attorney at Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), Lauren was scheduled to participate in our 2022 Daynard panel.  We extend our deepest sympathy to her family and the LCR community.

  Moderator:
  Jeremy Paul
  Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law

  Keesha Gaskins-Nathan is director of the Democratic Practice–United States program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Gaskins-Nathan is dedicated to advancing measures and ideas that improve democratic systems and engage democratic culture in the United States to support full and fair democratic and economic opportunity for all residents.

  Gaskins-Nathan is a long-time organizer, lobbyist and trial attorney. Prior to joining the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, she was senior counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice, serving as the director of the Redistricting and Representation program. Her portfolio included redistricting reform, voting rights, and elections, with a focus on voter suppression issues. Gaskins-Nathan is a frequent lecturer and writer on issues related to women and politics, movement building, and democratic reform. She is the author of numerous articles and publications related to voter suppression, voting rights and redistricting.

  Gaskins-Nathan served as executive director for the League of Women Voters Minnesota and the executive director for the Minnesota Women’s Political Caucus. She worked for several years as a civil trial attorney, and also served as a special assistant appellate public defender for the State of Minnesota.

  Following law school, Gaskins-Nathan served as a shared judicial clerk for the Honorable Alan Page and the Honorable Joan Ericksen at the Minnesota Supreme Court. She was also a 2008 Feminist Leadership Fellow with the University of Minnesota, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs – Center on Women and Public Policy. She is a frequent commentator on voting rights and redistricting reform and regularly appears on numerous news and public affairs programming, including past appearances on PBS’s NewsHour, MSNBC and Bill Moyers.

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  Fall 2021 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  October 4 – 6, 2021
  Fall 2021 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow
  LINDA RIVAS
  Executive Director and Managing Attorney, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

  >> Download the invitation
  >> Download the flyer

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Border Cruelty: A Day to Day Look at Immigration Law on the Border
  Monday, October 4, 2021 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser

  ROUNDTABLE
  “I Would Still Have Come:” A Conversation with Experts and Directly Impacted Migrant Women About the Impact of Border Policies on Their Lives
  Wednesday, October 6, 2021 | 12:45 – 2:10 PM | 240 Dockser

  Panelists:  

  Jocelyn Alves Cordiero
  Reunited Mother

  Brooke Bischoff ’16
  Managing Attorney, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center

  Philip Kretsedemas
  Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts

  Moderator 
  Hemanth Gundavaram
  Clinical Professor and Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic, Northeastern University School of Law

  This is a hybrid event. Registration is required and in-person attendance is limited to Northeastern students, faculty and staff. Zoom information will be sent to all registrants.

  Linda Y. Rivas is executive director and managing attorney of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a 34-year-old organization dedicated to the legal needs of low-income migrants, including assisting asylum seekers and those in need of family reunification as well as advocating for the dignity and rights of all migrants. During the Trump administration, Rivas represented and led efforts to reunite families who were separated as a result of the “Zero-Tolerance” immigration policy and the “Remain in Mexico” policy. Recently, Rivas has advocated to end Title 42 expulsions at the border.

  Rivas is also the co-founder of the Borderland Immigration Council (BIC), a local Texas group of attorneys, activists and advocacy groups formed to help address the dire situation of due process abuses, family separation and abuse of discretion that immigrants and refugees face during the course of their legal immigration cases.

  Rivas was born in Mexico and raised in El Paso, Texas, from the age of 4. She attended The University of Texas at El Paso and completed her studies with a bachelor of arts in psychology with a minor in legal reasoning. She earned her JD at Loyola College of Law in New Orleans. During law school, Rivas clerked with the US Department of Justice, Executive Office of Immigration Review. At the beginning of her career, Rivas advocated for children in the child welfare system as an attorney ad-litem. She went on to become the West Texas VAWA (Violence Against Women’s Act) manager for the Texas Civil Rights Project in El Paso.

  Rivas’ work is often featured in The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, The Texas Tribune and The New York Times.

• 2020-2021

  December 7-9, 2020
  Winter 2020 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow 
  RJ THOMPSON
  Managing Director, Sex Workers Project; Project Director, Human Rights Project, Urban Justice Center
  >> Download the postcard
  >> Download the flyer

  ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
  Destigmatize, Decriminalize, Decarcerate: The Intersections of Race, Gender, Sexuality, Migration and Labor in the Sex Trades
  Wednesday, December 9, 2020 | 12:15 – 1:30 PM

  Participants

  SIENNA BASKIN
  Director, Anti-Trafficking Fund, NEO Philanthropy

  ZOLA BRUCE
  Director of Communications, Sex Workers Project, Urban Justice Center

  JARED TRUJILLO
  President, Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (UAW Local 2325)

  Moderator
  AZIZA AHMED
  Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law

  RJ THOMPSON is a longtime human rights lawyer, organizer and educator as well as a certified personal trainer, go-go dancer and performer in the adult film industry. Prior to joining the Sex Workers Project as managing director, Thompson worked as the Fair Courts Project community educator at Lambda Legal, where he trained judges, attorneys and court staff on gender and sexuality cultural competency and advocated for judicial diversity and judicial independence in Arizona, Texas, Florida and the federal bench. Previously, Thompson served as the Miami High road coordinator with the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United), fighting for increased wages, healthcare and paid time off for restaurant workers, as well as director of the human rights program at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, where he advocated for the human rights of sex workers during the first United Nations Universal Periodic Review of the US. Thompson was also the national campaign and advocacy manager at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Community Center in New York City, where he coordinated Causes in Common, a national cross-movement initiative linking the reproductive justice and LGBT movements. He was membership program coordinator at the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) Coordinating Center, where he organized Southern NGOs to meet with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants. In addition to his staff role with USHRN, he also co-founded the Sexual Rights and Gender Justice Working Group of the USHRN as a volunteer leader and later served on the USHRN board of directors.

  Thompson received his JD from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law and his BA in Africana studies and political science from the University of South Florida in Tampa. He has also worked with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Equality Florida, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, CRUNCH fitness and Amnesty International USA. Thompson is a queer-identified mixed blood Cherokee with deep Southern roots. He is an active member and leader in the Soka Gakkai International USA (SGI-USA) Nichiren Buddhist organization for peace, culture and education. He is also a vegetarian and a bodybuilder.

  Co-sponsored by the Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration at Northeastern University School of Law

  September 21 – 23, 2020
  Fall 2020 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow
  EMMA KETTERINGHAM ’98
  Managing Attorney, Family Defense Practice, The Bronx Defenders
  >> Download the postcard

  *COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Introduction to the Family Regulation System: A Largely Unexamined Part of the Carceral State
  Monday, September 21, 2020, 12:15 PM

  *ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
  Family Defense: An Urgent Call to Action
  Wednesday, September 23, 2020, 12:15 PM

  Panelists
  Lisa Sangoi
  Co-Founder and Co-Director, Movement for Family Power

  Tehra Coles
  Litigation Supervisor, Government Affairs and Policy, Center for Family Representation

  Zabrina Aleguire
  Co-Executive Director, East Bay Family Defenders

  Emma Ketteringham started at The Bronx Defenders as a criminal defense attorney and is now managing attorney of the organization’s Family Defense Practice. She supervises attorneys, social workers and parent advocates who represent parents accused of child abuse and neglect and facing possible termination of parental rights. Ketteringham participates in numerous court-based and independent coalitions to develop pro-family policies and practices in New York City, including the committee devoted to reducing racial disproportionality in foster care. Previously, Ketteringham served as the director of legal advocacy for National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where she was counsel and strategist on criminal and civil child welfare cases at the intersection of the wars on women and drugs. She also worked as a litigation associate at Lansner and Kubitschek, where she represented parents and children in civil rights actions in state and federal court, and at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where she worked on complex civil litigation. After graduating from Northeastern, she clerked first in the US District Court for the District of Maine and then at the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She holds a BA in political science from Trinity College.

• 2019-2020

  WINTER 2020 DAYNARD PUBLIC INTEREST LAW FELLOW

  February 3-5, 2020
  Chaumtoli Huq ’97
  Founder/Editor, Law@theMargins; Associate Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law
  

  Chaumtoli Huq is an associate professor of law at CUNY School of Law and the founder and editor of Law@theMargins, an innovative law and media nonprofit focused on law and social justice. Her expertise lies in labor and employment, and human rights. Huq has devoted her professional career to public service focusing on issues impacting low-income New Yorkers. In 2014, she was appointed general counsel for litigation for the office of the New York City Public Advocate, becoming the highest-ranking Bangladeshi-American in New York City government. She has been honored with a New American Hero Award by the New American Leaders and an Access to Justice Award by the South Asian Bar Association of New York. Along with holding leadership roles at Legal Services NYC and MFY Legal Services, she also served as director of the first South Asian Workers’ Rights Project at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the first staff attorney to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and has served on Manhattan Community Board 7 for the Upper West Side.

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Monday, February 3, 2020, noon
  Engaging in Movement Lawyering Transnationally

  ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
  Wednesday, February 5, 2020, noon
  Storytelling and Narratives for Justice

  Roundtable Participants:
  Armand Coleman
  Restorative Justice Circle Leader, Everyday Boston

  Cheryl Hamilton
  Director of Special projects, International Institute of New England

  Vatsady Sivongxay
  Statewide Complete Count Committee Coordinator
  Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)

  Cara Solomon
  Founder/Director, Everyday Boston

  Moderator:
  Hemanth Gundavaram
  Clinical Professor and Co-Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic, Northeastern University School of Law

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  FALL 2019 DAYNARD PUBLIC INTEREST LAW FELLOW

  September 23 – 25, 2019
  Jaribu Hill
  Founder and Executive Director, Mississippi Worker’s Center for Human Rights and the Mississippi Project

  Jaribu Hill is founder and executive director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights. She is a human rights attorney, veteran community organizer, international human rights spokesperson and a frequent writer and commentator on human rights themes.

  Hill is the founder of the Southern Human Rights Organizers’ Conference as well as the Fannie Lou Hamer Roundtable and CUNY Law School’s Mississippi Project. As former director of the southern regional office of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Hill won an important judgment against the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. She has coordinated cutting-edge litigation in the areas of housing as a human right and racially hostile work environments. Hill’s scholarly works are featured in numerous publications including Black Scholar; National Black Law Journal; and Southern University Law Review. She is co-author of The Black College Guide and author of Knowledge is Power—A Know Your Rights Manual. She is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including the coveted Gloria Award. Hill is a former Skadden Fellow and a former Thurgood Marshall Fellow. She is a former municipal judge for Hollandale, Mississippi, and currently serves as a Special Master for Mental Commitments for Washington County Chancery Court.

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Back in the Day Is Today: Continued Forms of Race Discrimination in Workplaces
  Monday, September 23, 2019, noon

  ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
  Sexual Harassment in Low-Wage Workplaces: Demystifying the Law
  Wednesday, September 25, 2019, noon

  Participants
  ROXANA RIVERA
  Vice President, 32BJ SEIU District 615

  MILAGROS BARRETO
  Worker Center Director, Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH)

  SOPHIA HALL
  Supervising Attorney, Lawyers for Civil Rights

  Moderator
  H.C. ROBINSON
  Associate Professor of Law and Sociology, Northeastern University School of Law

• 2018-2019

  Winter 2019 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  Dimple Abichandani ’02
  Executive Director, General Service Foundation
  February 4-6, 2019

  Dimple Abichandani is the executive director of the General Service Foundation (GSF), a private foundation that supports organizations advocating for racial and gender justice. Dimple joined General Service Foundation in 2015, bringing almost two decades of experience advancing social justice as a lawyer, funder and educator.

  Prior to joining GSF, Dimple was the executive director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the Center, Dimple launched a social justice innovation lab aimed at generating new long-term approaches to persistent social justice challenges and providing law students opportunities to develop skills and mindsets including creativity, empathy, collaboration and social justice problem solving.

  As the founding program officer of the Security and Rights Collaborative (SRC) at the Proteus Fund, Dimple managed a donor collaborative aimed at challenging post-9/11 Islamophobia and discrimination and restoring civil rights and liberties. Earlier in her career, Dimple worked at Legal Services NYC, first as a staff attorney where she represented low wage workers and later as the Director of Program Development.

  Dimple currently serves on the board of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees and has served on the boards of Asian Americans Advancing Justice- Asian Law Caucus, Forward Together and the Third Wave Foundation. Dimple earned a JD at Northeastern University School of Law in 2002, and a BA in English at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Oakland, CA with her daughter and partner.

  COMMUNITY LECTURE
  Shifting the Story: Narrative Change in the Time of Trump
  Monday, February 4, 2019, noon
  

  ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
  Just Narratives: When Law and Storytelling Intersect
  Wednesday,  February 6, 2019, noon
  
  

  Participants: 
  SHANNON AL-WAKEEL ERWIN
  Executive Director and Founder, Muslim Justice League (MJL)
  @MuslimJustice

  REBECCA HART HOLDER
  Executive Director, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts
  @RHartholder
  @ProChoicemass

  JUDY NORSIGAN
  Co-Founder and Former Executive Director, Our Bodies, Ourselves (Current Chair, Board of Directors)
  @JudyNorsigian
  @oboshealth

  ANTHONY ROMERO
  Professor of the Practice, (Performance), School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA at Tufts)
  @SMFAatTufts

  HEMA SARANG-SIEMINSKI ’05 
  Senior Staff Attorney, Victim Rights Law Center
  @VictimRightsLaw

  Moderator:
  AZIZA AHMED
  Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law
  @AzizaAhmed

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  Fall 2018 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  September 24 – 26, 2018
  Prerna Lal
  Founder and Managing Attorney, Lal Legal

  Prerna Lal was born in the Fiji Islands, came to the United States with their parents when they were 14, and then lived in the San Francisco East Bay area.

  Formerly an undocumented immigrant, Lal was integral to establishing United We DREAM and the DreamActivist network, both led by undocumented youth. The organizations mobilized thousands of undocumented immigrants to push for the federal DREAM Act in 2010, ending the deportations of undocumented youth, and securing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program under the Obama Administration. A mobilizer and social media strategist, Lal has also helped with the creation of many local immigrant youth groups, providing direct support, mentorship and advocacy to individuals caught up in the immigration dragnet.

  As an undocumented law school graduate, Lal was among the first in the country to obtain a license to practice law. As a result of Lal’s high-spirited activism, the US government sought to deport them. Law won lawful permanent residency after a long court battle, and in April 2018, Lal became a United States citizen.

  As a nonprofit policy attorney in Washington, DC, Lal worked at Asian Americans Advancing Justice  (AAJC), spearheading initatives related to extending DACA, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Nepal and parole-in-place for family members of Filipino war veterans. Through a partnership between the East Bay Community Law Center and UC Berkeley’s Undocumented Student Program, Lal provided immigration legal services for more than 500 students and their family members. As an immigration attorney, clinical supervisor and lecturer at a clinic of UC Berkeley School of Law, Lal mentored a new generation of public interest law students.

  Community Lecture
  Immigrants Making America Great Again: Lessons from an Undocumented Immigrant Turned Lawyer
  Monday, September 24, 2018, noon
  

  Roundtable Discussion
  Defying Borders and Binaries: Legal Resistance and Civil Disobedience During the Rise of White Nationalism
  Wednesday, September 26, 2018, noon

  Participants

  Daniela Carvajal
  Immigrant Rights Organizer, Centro Presente, Boston

  Marisa Howe
  Managing Attorney, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Boston

  Patricia Montes
  Executive Director, Centro Presente, Boston

  Moderator
  Hemanth Gundavaram
  Teaching Professor and Co-Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic, Northeastern University School of Law

• 2017-2018

  Winter 2018 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  February 5-7, 2018

  Chase Strangio ’10
  Staff Attorney, ACLU LGBT & HIV Project

  Chase Strangio is a staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project. He has been involved in numerous high-profile cases, including serving as counsel for Chelsea Manning in her lawsuit against the Department of Defense for denial of health care related to gender transition and was part of the team that organized around her commutation. He has also worked on lawsuits challenging North Carolina’s infamous anti-trans laws, HB2 and HB142, and on Gavin Grimm’s trans rights case before the US Supreme Court. He is currently part of the legal team at the ACLU challenging President Trump’s ban on open military service by transgender individuals. Strangio is frequently quoted in national media outlets such as The New York Times, Time magazine and MSNBC, and was recently profiled in Mother Jones. In his free time, he organizes around ending cash bail and hangs out with his kid.

  Community Lecture
  “We Just Need to Pee”: Constructing the Trans Body in Public and Legal Discourse
  Monday, February 5, 2018, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Roundtable Discussion
  Body Parts: An Interdisciplinary Conversation About Trans Bodies and Justice
  Wednesday, February 7, 2018, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Participants 

  Elijah Oyenuga
  Student, Lesley University; Peer Leader, Boston Gay & Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS); Commission Member, Massachusetts Committee on LGBTQ Youth

  Krista Miranda
  Visiting Scholar, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Northeastern University

  Moderator:

  Professor Libby Adler
  Professor of Law and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Northeastern University

  Co-sponsored by the Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration at Northeastern University School of Law

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  Fall 2017 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow

  September 25 -27, 2017

  Adam J. Foss
  Co-Founder, Prosecutor Impact

  Adam J. Foss, a former assistant district attorney in the Juvenile Unit of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston, is a fierce advocate for criminal justice reform and the importance of the role of the prosecutor in ending mass incarceration. Foss’ belief that the profession of prosecution is ripe for reinvention through better incentives and more measurable metrics for success beyond “cases won,” led him to co-found Prosecutor Impact, a nonprofit that develops training and curriculum for prosecutors to reframe their role in the criminal justice system.

  Foss is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including recognition as a 2017 Nelson Mandela Changemaker of the Year. Fast Company named him one of the Most Creative People in Business of 2017, and The Root placed him among its 100 most influential black Americans of 2016. A graduate of Suffolk University Law School, he is the recipient of an Open Society Foundation’s Leadership in Government Fellowship and was named a Director’s Fellow with the MIT Media Lab. In 2013, the Massachusetts Bar Association recognized him with its Access to Justice Prosecutor Award.

  Community Lecture

  Evolution of Prosecution: 21st-Century Criminal Justice
  Monday, September 25, 2017, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Roundtable Discussion

  What Does It Mean to Be a Prosecutor Right Now?
  Wednesday, September 27, 2017, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Participants:
  The Honorable Justice Margot Botsford ’73 (ret.)

  Ronald Odam Sr.
  Co-Founder, The S.P.O.T. for Life (The Steven P. Odom Training for Life)

  Stanley Vargas
  College Student

  Moderator: 
  Rose Zoltek-Jick, Associate Teaching Professor

• 2016-2017

  Winter 2017 Daynard Public Interest Law Fellow

  January 30 – February 1, 2017

  Nancy Hollander
  Attorney, Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Urias & Ward

  Nancy Hollander is an internationally recognized criminal defense lawyer. She has practiced with Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Urias & Ward in Albuquerque, New Mexico, since 1980 and has been a partner since 1983. Her practice is largely devoted to representing individuals and organizations accused of crimes, including those involving national security issues. She currently represents a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and is lead appellate counsel for Chelsea Manning in the military appellate courts.

  Ms. Hollander has also been counsel in numerous civil cases, forfeitures and administrative hearings, and has argued and won a case involving religious freedom in the US Supreme Court. She has taught in numerous trial practice programs, including the National Criminal Defense College and Gerry Spence’s Trial College, and at national and international seminars, and has written extensively on these and other criminal law topics. She is co-author of WestGroup’s Everytrial Criminal Defense Resource Book, Wharton’s Criminal Evidence, 15th edition, and Wharton’s Criminal Procedure, 14th edition.

  Among her many honors, Ms. Hollander is listed in The International Who’s Who of Business Crime Lawyers, was chosen as Best Lawyers’ Albuquerque Criminal Defense: Non-White-Collar Lawyer of the Year in 2010, White-Collar Lawyer of the Year in 2011 and General Practice Lawyer of the Year in 2016. In addition to her US practice, Ms. Hollander is an associate tenant with Doughty Street Chambers, London, where she focuses on international issues, including criminal law, international law and human rights.

  Community Lecture
  How to Serve the Public Interest and Make a Real Difference While Making a Living in Private Practice: From Guantanamo to the Supreme Court

  Monday, January 30, 2017, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Roundtable Discussion
  

  Why We Need a Free Society and a Free Press to Protect Whistleblowers
  Wednesday, February 1, 2017, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Participants

  Evan Greer
  Founder and Co-Director, Fight for the Future

  The Honorable Nancy Gertner
  Senior Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; Judge, US District Court for the District of Massachusetts (retired)

  Matthew Segal
  Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts

  Moderator: 
  Daniel Medwed, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University School of Law

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  Fall 2016 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow

  September 26 – 28, 2016
  Fall 2016 Daynard Visiting Fellow

  Sukti Dhital ’06
  Deputy Director, Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, New York University Law school

  Sukti Dhital is a human rights lawyer with eight years of frontline international law experience in the fields of economic and social rights. She is the deputy director of the Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU Law school, a research center that promotes cutting-edge scholarship, advocacy and education on human rights issues in the US and abroad. She is co-founder — and former executive director — of Nazdeek, a legal empowerment organization committed to bringing access to justice closer to marginalized communities in India. Nazdeek was recently awarded the inaugural Namati Justice Prize for its groundbreaking work in fusing grassroots legal education, community-driven data collection, use of legal remedies and strategic advocacy to increase accountability in the delivery of health, nutrition and labor benefits for poor and marginalized communities.

  Prior to founding Nazdeek, Sukti was the director of the Reproductive Rights Unit at the Human Rights Law Network, India, and assisted in securing landmark judgments on economic and social rights including Laxmi Mandal v. Deen Dayal Harinagar Hospital & ORS, W.P.(C) 8853/2008, the first decision in the world to recognize maternal mortality as a human rights violation and to award constitutional damages. Sukti has also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, where she provided legal and policy support on a range of issues, including medical care provided to women in custodial settings, and as a litigation associate at the firm of Bingham Mccutcheon, where she assisted on appellate matters including multiple cases before the US Supreme Court. Sukti is a member of the International Social and Economic Rights Project (iSERP), and has engaged in a number of speaking and teaching engagements including Harvard University’s School of Global Health Rights Program and co-authored articles such as “The Right to Safe Motherhood Through Litigation: The Indian Story,” in Social and Economic Rights in Theory and Practice: A Critical Assessment (Rutledge, 2014).

  Community Lecture

  Legal Mobilizing from the Grassroots: Using the Law to Demand Dignity in Assam’s Tea Gardens
  Monday, September 26, 2016, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Roundtable Discussion

  101 Ways to do Human Rights: Fusing Technology, Grassroots Lawyering & More
  Wednesday, September 28, 2016, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Participants

  Sukti Dhital ’08
  Deputy Director, Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, New York University School of Law

  Margaret Hagan
  Fellow, Stanford Center on the Legal Profession; Lecturer, Stanford Institute of Design

  Natalicia Tracy
  Executive Director, Brazilian Worker Center and Brazilian Policy Center

  Moderator
  Karl Kare, Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law

  The panelists are innovators and leaders of cutting-edge projects that promote grassroots legal empowerment by mobilizing the latest forms of advanced communication technology with the goal of democratization of access to legal knowledge and to justice. The panelists will describe their projects in diverse contexts including advocacy for maternal health and nutrition in the tea gardens of Assam, India; the social and legal problems that arise after natural disasters as, e.g., in Baton Rouge; the “liberation technology” scene in so-called developing countries; and worker empowerment and immigrant rights issues in Boston. These projects make people aware of their rights; train grassroots leaders and activists in monitoring and reporting violations; collect data used for advocacy; help people entitled to benefits apply for and stay on track in accessing them.

  The panel will bring together NUSL’s areas of excellence in public health and technology and our ethos of law in the public interest. The panelists will also share thoughts on how new technological developments expected to emerge in future years will deepen their access to justice projects.

• 2015-2016

  January 25 – 27, 2016
  Winter 2016 Daynard Visiting Fellow:

  Leslie Walker ’85
  Executive Director, Prisoners’ Legal Services

  Leslie Walker is the executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS) of Massachusetts, where she works to ensure that all prisoners in Massachusetts receive needed civil legal advocacy addressing such prison reform issues as mandatory minimums, solitary confinement, guard brutality, adequate medical and mental health care, overcrowding, sexual assault, compassionate release and exorbitant phone rates. Prior to joining PLS 2001, she worked for 16 years at the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), Massachusetts’ public defender agency, first as a staff attorney and then as director of Legal Resources and Support Services for the Private Counsel Division. Ms. Walker has been awarded the MACDL Clarence Gideon Award, the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Women of Justice Award and the CPCS Thurgood Marshall Award, among others.

  Community Lecture:
  Behind Barbed Wire: Who is in Prison and What Happens When the World is Not Watching?
  Monday, January 25, 2016, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

  Roundtable Discussion:
  Correcting Corrections: Hear from the Experts on How to Improve Imprisonment, Including Those Who Have Lived It.
  Wednesday, January 27, 2016, noon
  240 Dockser Hall

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  September 28 – 30, 2015

  Fall 2015 Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellow:
  Thena Robinson-Mock
  Project Director, Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track Program at Advancement Project

  Thena Robinson-Mock is a civil rights attorney with over a decade of experience in racial and social justice advocacy. At the Advancement Project, Ms. Robinson-Mock leads a team that uses a combination of legal, policy, organizing and communication strategies to reform punitive school disciplinary policies, end the presence of police in schools and advocate for alternatives to exclusionary discipline, such as restorative justice.

  Prior to joining the Advancement Project, Ms. Robinson-Mock served as executive director of Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools (The Rethinkers), a dynamic youth organizing and leadership development organization that uses participatory education and action research to build organizing and leadership skills of New Orleans youth. She also led a campaign to bring an end to the excessive use of school-based arrests against African American youth in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, that resulted in the filing of an administrative Title VI complaint with the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

  Ms. Robinson-Mock has a passion for merging the arts with social justice and has co-written two original plays, “Voices from the Back of the Class” and “Lockdown,” in partnership with the New Orleans-based theater organization, Junebug Productions, formerly known as the Free Southern Theater. She a graduate of Hampton University and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. She is the recipient of the “40 under 40” award from Gambit Weekly in New Orleans and was named as a “Women Rule!” honoree by the O-White House Leadership Project.

  • Community Lecture
    Black Students Matter: Exposing the Criminalization of Youth of Color and the School-to-Prison Pipeline
    Monday, September 28, 2015, noon
    

  • Roundtable
    Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Community Lawyering and Movement Building for Change
    Wednesday, September 30, 2015, noon

• 2014-2015

  February 2 – 4, 2015
  Barbara R. Arnwine
  President and Executive Director, National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee)

  Barbara Arnwine, president & executive director of the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee) since 1989, is internationally renowned for contributions on critical justice issues including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 reauthorization of provisions of the Voting Rights Act. She also created the legendary Voting Rights “Map of Shame” in 2011, which remains popular. A graduate of Scripps College and Duke University School of Law, she continues to champion civil rights and racial justice issues nationally and internationally in the areas of housing and lending, community development, employment, voting, education, and environmental justice. Ms. Arnwine’s work also includes women’s rights, immigrant rights, judicial diversity, criminal justice reform, racial profiling, health care disparities and LBGTQ rights.

  • Community Lecture
    In Pursuit of Systemic Change: Combatting Racial Injustice in Policing and Voting!
    Monday, February 2, 2015, noon – canceled due to weather. Stay tuned for information about rescheduling. 
  • Roundtable
    Refocusing Justice: Boston and the National Struggle for Racial Justice
    Wednesday, February 4, 2015, noon

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  September 29 – October 1, 2014
  Marielena Hincapié ’96
  Executive Director, National Immigration Law

  Marielena Hincapié is executive director of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), headquartered in Los Angeles. Founded in 1979, NILC is dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants in the United States. Under her leadership, NILC has grown to be one of the premier immigrants’ rights organizations, strategically using a combination of litigation, policy, communications and alliance-building to affect social change. Fully bilingual and bicultural, Hincapié serves as a resource and is often interviewed by media outlets such as Univisión, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among others. She is a frequent lecturer at national and international conferences, and works closely with emerging leaders in the social justice world.

  • Community Lecture
    What’s Law Got to Do With It? Migration, Militarization, and Criminalization of Communities of Color
    Monday, September 29, 2014, noon 

  • Roundtable
    From the Ground Up: Advancing Immigrant Rights in the Absence of Congressional Action
    Wednesday, October 1, 2014, noon

    Participants:
    Marielena Hincapie, Executive Director, National Immigration Law Center
    Sarang Sekhavat, Federal Policy Director, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition
    Natalicia Tracy, Executive Director, Brazilian Immigrant Center

    Moderator: Professor Rachel Rosenbloom

• 2013-2014

  Debra Gardner ’82
  Legal Director, Public Justice Center

  As legal director for the Public Justice Center, a nonprofit legal services organization dedicated to protecting and expanding the rights of people living in poverty, Debra Gardner has served as lead advocate in a wide range of impact litigation and other advocacy, including national and company-wide collective and class action suits concerning wage and hour violations and employment discrimination. Among her many responsibilities, Ms. Gardner has coordinated the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, an association of individuals and organizations committed to ensuring meaningful access to the courts for all through the implementation of a right to counsel in civil cases, sometimes known informally as “civil Gideon.”

  • Community Lecture

  Justice Delayed Remains Justice Denied: The Pursuit of a Civil Right to Counsel 
  Monday, January 27, 2014, noon

  • Roundtable

  Overcoming the Notion that a Civil Right to Counsel is Unrealistic
  Wednesday, January 29, 2014, noon

  Panelists:

  John Pollock, Public Justice Center and the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel
  Jacqui Bowman, Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS)
  Jayne Tyrrell, Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA)
  Mike Greco, KL Gates and the American Bar Association

  ---

  Sharon Eubanks
  Founding Partner, Edwards & Eubanks

  • Community Lecture

  Representing the Underrepresented: Civil Rights in the 21st Century 
  Monday, September 30, 2013, noon

  • Roundtable

  Private Impact Litigation
  Wednesday, October 2, 2013, noon

• 2011-2012

  Patricia Garin ’84
  Partner, Stern Shapiro Weissberg & Garin
  Visiting September 21-23, 2011

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  Carlos Spector
  Law Offices of Carlos Spector
  Visiting January 9-11, 2012

• 2010-2011

  Frederick Brewington ′82
  Civil Rights Litigator
  Visiting October 4-6, 2010

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  Flor Bermudez
  Youth in Out-of-Home Care Project Staff Attorney, Lambda Legal
  Visiting February 7-9, 2011

• 2009-2010

  Monica Halas ’77-’78
  Employment Law Unit
  Lead Attorney, Greater Boston Legal Services

  Community Lecture: Tuesday, October 27, 2009, noon
  Waging Campaigns for Change: A Legal Services Tribute to Clients, Community-Based Organizations and Labor

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  Sujatha Baliga
  Soros Justice Fellow
  Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth

• 2009

  William P. Quigley
  Janet Mary Riley Distinguished Professor of Law; Director, Law Clinic and Gillis Long Poverty Law Clinic
  Loyola University New Orleans School of Law

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  Leslie J. Winner ’76
  Executive Director
  Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation

• 2008

  Michael Ratner
  President
  Center for Constitutional Rights

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  Christina DeConcini ’88
  Director of Legislative Affairs
  World Resources Institute

• 2007

  James Bell
  Executive Director
  The W. Haywood Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice, Fairness and Equity

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  Judith A. Scott ’74
  Member
  James & Hoffman
  General Counsel
  Service Employees International Union

• 2006

  Stephen M. Kohn ’84
  Partner, Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto

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  Oona Chatterjee
  Co-founder and Co-director,
  Make the Road by Walking

• 2005

   

  Mary L. Bonauto ’87
  Civil Rights Project Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)

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  D. Milo Mumgaard 
  Executive Director
  Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest