San Francisco Public Defender’s Office

San Francisco, CA

Meredith Sullivan will spend her fellowship year at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. As a fellow, she will help litigate trial and post-conviction claims under the California Racial Justice Act. She will also work to uphold city and state sanctuary laws while supporting noncitizen clients impacted by local law enforcement practices circumventing these sanctuary laws. She is grateful for the support of the Redstone Fellowship and the Judge Edith Fine Award for making it possible for her to pursue this time-sensitive work.

Meredith spent her 1L at Berkeley Law, where she participated in a biweekly workers’ rights clinic, was an editor and blog contributor for the Berkeley Journal of International Law, and was a Human Rights Center summer fellow.

Since transferring to Harvard Law School, Meredith was a student attorney and team leader with Harvard Defenders, where she represented indigent clients in showcause hearings. In the Crimmigration Clinic, she was a member of the Bond Team, worked on appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals, researched Padilla advisals, and provided brief services to detained and non-detained asylum seekers. Meredith also worked as a student attorney with the Criminal Justice Institute. During her 3L year, Meredith honed her Egyptian Arabic as a 2024-25 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellow through the Harvard Center for African Studies. During law school,
Meredith completed over 1800 hours of pro bono work.

During her law school summers, Meredith interned with the Office of the Federal Public Defender, Capital Habeas Unit, in Little Rock, Arkansas and the Criminal Defense Practice of the Legal Aid Society in New York, NY.

Meredith graduated magna cum laude with degrees in political science from the Dual B.A. Program between Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris in 2018. Before law school, Meredith spent two years helping Massachusetts tenants obtain rental assistance, reasonable accommodations, and fight eviction as a paralegal at Northeast Legal Aid. She also volunteered with the Center for Public Counsel Services for a summer in the Child and Family Unit, worked in Cairo, Egypt for a year, and earned her MPhil from the University of Cambridge. She is from Yarmouth, Massachusetts.