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While “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice,” the journey there is rarely easy, and there are many losses along the way. Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Michele Hall, a former public defender and an attorney at Brown, Goldstein & Levy working primarily in criminal defense and appellate practice, on how to confront losing in public interest practice. Michele will reflect on her experiences taking losses in the Supreme Court of Maryland and turning them into legislative change, reframing individual case losses and understanding how they can be systemic wins, and how to maintain hope and sustain career longevity despite the obstacles public interest lawyers face.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below!

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Graphical illustration of percent of individuals in solitary confinement

In this session Professor Arevik Avedian and HLS student Felicia Caten-Raines (JD ’25) from the HLS Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program will walk through various steps of empirical analysis, including data quality check and cleaning, best practices of creating and sharing replication data and code, and data analysis and visualization – all grounded in the incredibly impactful report they co-authored with researchers from HLS, HMS, and Physicians for Human Rights entitled “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention.

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Peter O’Meara from the Harvard International Office will hold drop-in office hours in the OPIA suite to offer quick consults and answers questions about travel and work authorization as an international student. No need for an appointment; students will be served on a first-come, first-served basis.

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Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Richard Saenz, as he discusses his career in the LGBTQ+ movement as an advocate for the rights of incarcerated people. Richard will share how litigation, policy advocacy, and community organizing can be powerful tools to challenge anti-LGBTQ+ bias in the criminal legal system. Learn how Richard centers the lives and stories of his clients—including when movement priorities have left them out—and how, as an openly gay, Latino, and the first in his family to go to law school, Richard’s life experiences have shaped his career as a public interest lawyer.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below!

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Join OPIA for a community discussion with Wasserstein Fellow Tara Koslov, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service. Tara will discuss her 27+ year career at the FTC, where she has served in a variety of enforcement, policy, and leadership roles. She will share her insights on career-track and political-appointment opportunities within the federal government, the best ways to grow one’s legal skillset at each stage of development, and the “joys” of management and executive leadership in a public interest setting. She will also discuss her passion for competition law, what makes it an intellectually stimulating discipline, how it has changed over the years, and why vigorous antitrust enforcement is so important to our economy. When Tara began the practice of law as a baby antitrust associate at a BigLaw firm, she found it challenging to explain her work to her extended family. But antitrust has now become so mainstream that she can even talk about it around the Thanksgiving table.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below!

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Navigating a career in international human rights may be daunting, particularly during the first few years after law school. Join Wasserstein Fellow Niku Jafarnia ’20, as she describes the path she took to build a career in international human rights while a student at HLS and immediately following graduation. Niku will discuss working as a post-graduate fellow with a Yemeni human rights organization, making the jump from fellowship to a staff position, considerations for living/working abroad, and how to build a skillset (and mindset!) that will ready you for this challenging but rewarding practice area.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below!

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Join Wasserstein Fellow and union attorney Pamela Devi Chandran for a discussion on using law as one (important) tool in the larger fight for working people’s rights. Unionized workplaces comprise people of diverse backgrounds who are united in a struggle to improve their worklife. At a time when the contours of labor law seem bent against the labor movement, Pamela will share how lawyers must rely on strategy, advocacy, and the power of numbers to effect change – including change in the law. Open to the HLS community.

Lunch provided. RSVP below.

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Peter O’Meara from the Harvard International Office will hold drop-in office hours in the OPIA suite to offer quick consults and answers questions about travel and work authorization as an international student. No need for an appointment; students will be served on a first-come, first-served basis.

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Law school is full of conventional wisdom—including that as a 1L you need to pick an area of the law in which to specialize and that appellate litigation is the pinnacle of the profession. Join OPIA for a conversation with Wasserstein Fellow Bradley Girard, Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward, on why you should ignore that conventional wisdom. Bradley is a public-interest appellate generalist who has litigated cases involving the First Amendment, Title VII, habeas corpus, police violence, bankruptcy, and much more. As a first-generation law student, Bradley didn’t know what to focus on—he didn’t even know what lawyers actually did. Bradley will share how he figured out that impact and appellate work was his path, and will offer you advice on getting there if that’s what you want. But he will also talk about how conventional wisdom obscures that different approaches to the law and career paths are just as important.

Lunch provided. Please RSVP below! Open to the HLS community.

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Join Wasserstein Fellow Sapna Khatri to learn how to view reproductive justice through a wide-angle lens, recognizing that issues such as economic justice, racial equity, and environmental justice are all interconnected in the pursuit of reproductive justice. Using her own career as an example, Sapna hopes to provide students with insight navigating legal pathways and developing skills that can enhance one’s ability to advocate effectively for reproductive justice, regardless of where they practice. This session will both provide an overview of integrating reproductive justice into various aspects of legal practice, while also offering practical advice to aspiring advocates on identifying and pursuing opportunities that make a meaningful impact in the field.

Lunch provided. RSVP below. Open to the HLS community.

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Peter O’Meara from the Harvard International Office will hold drop-in office hours in the OPIA suite to offer quick consults and answers questions about travel and work authorization as an international student. No need for an appointment; students will be served on a first-come, first-served basis.