Youth Represent
New York, NY
Rena has been awarded a 2016 PSVF Fellowship and the Edith Fine Fellowship to work as a staff attorney at Youth Represent, providing civil and criminal representation to New York youth ensnared by the criminal justice system to ensure that they reclaim lives of dignity, self-fulfillment, and civic engagement. During her time at law school, Rena was a member of the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Justice, a student attorney for the Criminal Justice Institute and an active member of the Black Law Students Association and its ‘Street Law’ team, which gave Know Your Rights workshops to high school students. Rena also co-founded Students for Inclusion – an intersectional advocacy group fighting for meaningful inclusion of those communities and voices that have traditionally been marginalized in higher education and the legal field – and organized with student movements like the Harvard Ferguson Action Committee, Royall Must Fall and Reclaim HLS. During her first law school summer, Rena interned with the Civil Action and Criminal Defense practices of the Bronx Defenders. Prior to law school, Rena graduated from Yale University with a degree in African-American Studies.