New fund is the first at any law school to offer seed grants to social entrepreneurs for post-graduate ventures
Also announced: 2013 recipients of Skirnick, Kaufman and One Day’s Work Fellowships for public service
Sixteen public service visionaries and social entrepreneurs from Harvard Law School have been selected as the inaugural recipients of grants from the Public Service Venture Fund, a unique program which will award up to $1 million each year to help graduating Harvard Law students and recent graduates obtain their ideal jobs in public service—even if those jobs don’t yet exist.
A first-of-its kind program at a law school, the Public Service Venture Fund invites law students and recent alumni to identify unmet legal needs and develop new initiatives to meet them. Supporting “seed grants” for start-up public interest ventures, and salary support for fellows undertaking projects at existing organizations, the Venture Fund spearheads social entrepreneurship and a rigorous selection process advised by experienced entrepreneurs.
Seed grant recipients Alec Karakatsanis %SQUOTE%08 and Phil Telfeyan %SQUOTE%08 will found Equal Justice Under Law, a nonprofit civil rights law firm dedicated to challenging the role of the profit motive in areas related to the criminal system.” float=”right”]
“As we inaugurate the Public Service Venture Fund, we are grateful for the energy and innovative thinking of students, alumni, faculty, and expert advisors who participated in workshops, courses, and advising sessions on social enterprise possibilities for addressing vital public issues,” said Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. “I salute the talents, risk-taking, and devotion to others that characterize each recipient of the initial grants and fellowships. We are immensely indebted to all the donors whose vision saw the need to realize the dreams of students who want to serve people in need. Special recognition should be given to Irving and Carol Yoskowitz and Karl and Joan Zeisler for their most generous support to this inaugural year of the Fund.”
The Public Service Venture Fund started taking shape around two years ago at a time when the economy was still in decline. While many HLS students successfully landed external fellowships such as those offered by the Skadden Foundation and Equal Justice Works, the increasing number of students seeking public interest work highlighted a growing demand for more funding options, said Alexa Shabecoff, assistant dean for public service and director of the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising (OPIA), who is directing the Fund. At the same time, the economic downturn led to budget cuts in public interest organizations, as well as a significant rise in the need for legal services.
“In these problems, we also saw an opportunity: the imagination and creativity of young lawyers could guide new efforts to tackle problems,” said Shabecoff. “The Fund was designed to support the initiative and imagination of HLS graduates in pursuing public service by creating new initiatives at existing nonprofits and governments or launching new organizations to serve unmet needs.”
Seed Grant Recipient David Wertime ’07 co-founded Tea Leaf Nation, a news site that gauges Chinese citizen sentiment by analyzing the Chinese Internet.” float=”left”]
Seed grant fellows will receive $80,000 per year, which includes a $45,000 stipiend, with expectation of renewal for a second year. (Two of this year’s three seed grant recipients are working on the same project and will share the overhead support.) Organization-based fellows will receive $45,000 for one year to work in a nonprofit or government agency. Several partial fellowships will also be awarded to students who received third-party funding for international work, in order to allow them to extend their stays abroad and/or tackle additional projects.
The Fund, administered by the Law School’s Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising, comes with a host of related services for applicants, especially those applying for seed grants. OPIA has enlisted alumni and others to assist applicants with business advice and with developing the business plan and budget required to apply for a seed grant, and also to help fellows incorporate their startups.
Through a competitive application process, thirteen graduating students and three alumni were chosen as this year’s inaugural fellows, based on their vision for how to approach a public service problem or help a particular community. Chosen recipients will work on projects ranging from education policy reform to international development.
The Inaugural Public Service Venture Fund Fellows: Seed Grant Recipients
The inaugural recipients of seed grants from the new fund are:
Alec Karakatsanis ’08 and Phil Telfeyan ’08
Alec Karakatsanis and Phil Telfeyan will found Equal Justice Under Law, a nonprofit civil rights law firm dedicated to challenging the role of the profit motive in areas related to the criminal system. Graduates of the Harvard Law School Class of 2008, they met during a moot court competition in their 1L year.
Alec Karakatsanis ’08
After HLS, Karakatsanis spent a year as a law clerk for Judge Myron Thompson, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. He then worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama, where he represented indigent people accused of federal crimes. He is presently an attorney in the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he litigates complex criminal law and civil rights cases in federal and D.C. trial and appellate courts. At HLS, among other activities, he worked as a public defender in Roxbury and Dorchester District Courts through Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute. He also served as Supreme Court chair of the Harvard Law Review, as a student attorney and board member of Harvard Defenders, as executive editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal, as a research assistant for Professor Joseph William Singer and as co-founder and president of OneDaysWork.org. He is the author of The Human Lawyer, 34 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 563 (2010).
Karakatsanis said: “The contemporary American system of criminal injustice is devastating millions of lives and has tolerated and normalized a culture of mass incarceration unparalleled in the modern world and unprecedented in American history. The control exerted over millions of human bodies and minds is targeted in ways consistent with the larger inequalities that characterize our society and, like those inequalities, is all too often motivated by the pursuit of profit. Phil and I are excited that Harvard Law School—where we met, studied, and became lifelong friends—has given us the opportunity to strike at the financial interests and incentives that have corrupted our justice system.”
Phil Telfeyan ’08
Phil Telfeyan graduated from Harvard College in 2005 and, while at HLS, represented indigent criminal defendants through the Criminal Justice Institute and as a member of Harvard Defenders. Among other activities, he was notes editor of the Harvard Law Review and served on the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender and the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review. After graduating from HLS with honors in 2008, Telfeyan spent one year as a law clerk for the Hon. Janice Brown, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He received a Heyman Fellowship for service in the federal government and has worked since 2009 in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where he is currently a trial attorney. During his time in the Civil Rights Division, Telfeyan has investigated and litigated cases of employment discrimination against immigrant workers. Among his accomplishments, he has successfully settled the three largest cases in the history of his office.
Telfeyan said: “Every lawyer has an obligation to serve justice throughout her legal career. Alec and I are dedicated to helping those most in need and fighting the severe injustices that continue to permeate our legal system and our society as a whole. Harvard Law School prepared both of us to be committed seekers of social justice—its continued support speaks volumes to its dedication to the practice of public interest law.”
David Wertime ’07
In December 2011, along with two other HLS alumni, Wertime co-founded Tea Leaf Nation, a news site that gauges Chinese citizen sentiment by analyzing the Chinese Internet. Over 70 volunteer writers have contributed to the organization, which is a partner site to TheAtlantic.com and the Asia Society’s ChinaFile.com. Professor William Alford, Harvard Law School’s vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies and director of the East Asian Legal Studies Program, said: “Tea Leaf Nation breaks important new ground bringing the views of China’s citizenry, as expressed through social media, to an international audience in real time. And it does so with keen analysis, lively writing, and through the collaborative efforts of an impressive group of young people drawn from the PRC, the US and beyond. In the imagination that sparked it and the intelligence that sustains it, Tea Leaf Nation embodies the talent that distinguishes HLS graduates.”
Wertime is also a ChinaFile fellow at the Asia Society, a correspondent for The Atlantic, and an associate fellow at the Truman National Security Project. Prior to founding Tea Leaf Nation, Wertime worked as a corporate associate at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in Hong Kong. He also worked as a corporate associate at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore in New York. Before law school, he taught English and history as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling, China. While at HLS, Wertime was co-president of the Harvard Asia Law Society, a researcher at the Dui Hua Foundation, a summer intern at the NRDC in Beijing and a summer associate at Cleary Gottlieb Stein & Hamilton, in New York, Hong Kong, and Beijing.
The Inaugural Public Service Venture Fund Fellows: Organization-based Fellows
The inaugural organization-based recipients of support from the new fund are:
Ona Balkus JD/MPH ’13
With a joint degree from Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Public Health, Ona Balkus will work as a clinical fellow at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School. She will focus her fellowship on law and policy projects aimed at increasing the availability of healthy foods and access to health care for low-income populations. Before law school, Balkus served as an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer at Capital Area Food Bank, in Washington, D.C., where she led cooking-based nutrition classes for low-income residents and urban youth. She later worked as a grassroots organizer and nutrition policy coordinator at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. At HLS, Balkus was the food policy initiative leader for the Mississippi Delta Project and was a clinical student at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, where she also worked as a research assistant. She was also a research assistant for the Food Law and Policy Clinic director, Emily Broad Leib.
Nicolette Boehland ’13
Nicolette Boehland will document civilian experiences in armed conflict as a staff attorney at the Center for Civilians in Conflict. In the course of her fellowship year, she will conduct research in Syria, Somalia and the Philippines. In the summer of 2012, Boehland served as an intern at the Center, based in Tripoli, Libya. Before attending law school, she worked as the acting program manager for Save the Children International, in the West Bank and Gaza, and she was a Fulbright Fellow in Amman, Jordan. She also worked as a senior associate in the Legal and Policy Division at Human Rights Watch. At HLS, she was a co-founder of the International Conflict Initiative and an executive board member of Harvard Advocates for Human Rights. She spent her first summer in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she was a legal intern at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. She researched and co-wrote three reports at the Harvard International Human Rights Clinic, and she received several honors, including being named a Harvard Human Rights Program Scholar, a Cravath International Fellow, and a Chayes International Public Service Fellow.
Genevieve Bonadies ’13
Genzie Bonadies will develop school-legal partnerships in Oakland, Calif., public schools as a staff member at Centro Legal de la Raza. As a legal intern at the center in the summer of 2012, she provided legal services to indigent clients, on issues pertaining to housing and employment practices. After graduating from Harvard University, magna cum laude, in 2008, she served as a corps member of Teach for America and earned a M.Ed. from Arizona State University. She taught 6th grade at a Title 1 school in Phoenix, Ariz. While at HLS, Bonadies was a student attorney with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau’s housing and employment practices, where she represented indigent clients and also developed legal clinics and trainings. She also served as a research assistant for Professor Lani Guinier and was a legal intern at Public Advocates, Education Legal Team. Bonadies is the recipient of the Edith W. Fine Fellowship, awarded annually to a woman in the third year class of Harvard Law School who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and commitment to pursuing public service work for disenfranchised groups in the United States.
Andrew Crocker ’13
Andrew Crocker will work as a staff attorney on the civil liberties docket at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international digital rights group. While at HLS, Crocker worked in the Cyberlaw Clinic, was a teaching assistant in a law and policy seminar at MIT, served as a research assistant at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, was a law clerk at the Center for Democracy & Technology and served as a legal intern for Speech, Privacy and Technology and National Security Projects at the American Civil Liberties Union. He was also the executive editor for the online Digest of the Journal of Law and Technology. A 2006 Harvard College graduate with a MFA in Creative Writing from New York University, Crocker worked at Generation, where he helped nonprofit organizations assess client needs for recruitment, development, and marketing.
Frances Dales ’13
Frances Dales will work in partnership with the Julian Cho Society, a grassroots indigenous organization, conducting foundational research to launch a community-organizing program in southern Belize on the connection between indigenous land rights and food security. Dales spent the summer of 2009 in San Ignacio, Belize, where she facilitated the development of a grant proposal for an organic farm cooperative for indigenous farmers. While at HLS, she was a clinical student at the Harvard International Human Rights Clinic and held several internships, including working at Dejusticia in Bogotá, Colombia, at Asociacion Estorena Para El Desarrollo Integral in El Estor, Guatemala, and at Fundacion Ambiente Y Recursos Naturales. She was also executive editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal.
Shelmun Dashan ’13
Shelmun Dashan will work as a fellow in the consumer practice group at Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (LAF), the principal provider of free legal services to low-income residents in the Chicago area. Dashan, who worked as a summer intern in LAF’s consumer protection group, will provide direct legal services combating predatory lending, as well as community outreach and education, to low-income residents. While at HLS, Dashan was a tenant rights advocate at Project No One Leaves, a student attorney in the Consumer Protection Practice Group at WilmerHale Legal Services Center, a technical editor of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, a guest lecturer at UC Boulder, and an intern at Business Action Against Corruption, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Stephanie Davidson ’13
Stephanie Davidson will work at Urban Justice Center’s Domestic Violence Project, where she will provide direct civil legal services to low-income survivors of domestic violence who are living with disabilities. Before law school, Davidson served as a rape crisis counselor for four years and worked in the Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as an investigative analyst and a trial preparation assistant. While at HLS, She was president of the Harvard Women’s Law Association, worked as a student attorney on domestic violence cases at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, and as a law clerk at both the Women’s Law Project, and two plaintiff’s firms with expertise in gender and employment discrimination, Katz, Marshall & Banks and Cohen Milstein. Davidson is also the recipient of a Dean’s Award for Community Leadership and Harvard Law School’s 2013 Gary Bellow Award, which recognizes outstanding social justice work. She also received one of the Dean’s Awards for Community Service on Class Day.
Jason Gelbort JD/MALD ’13
Jason Gelbort, who received a joint degree from Harvard Law School and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, will work at the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG), in Libya and Kosovo. Gelbort, who worked as a summer associate at PILPG in the summer of 2010, will provide pro bono legal assistance to government officials and civil society members on issues related to constitution drafting, transitional justice and access to justice. Before law school, Gelbort was a senior consultant at Simon-Kucher & Partners, Strategy and Marketing Consultants. While at HLS, he was an intern in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice and at the Sierra Leone Law Reform Commission. He held a number of leadership roles at the Harvard Law and International Development Society, including serving as co-president. He also participated in a 10-day fact-finding mission at a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border, as part of clinical work for the Harvard International Human Rights Clinic.
Lillian Langford JD/MPP ’13
Lillian Langford, who is graduating with a joint degree from Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, will work in the Law Program of the Soros Foundation Kyrgyzstan. She was inspired to return to Kyrgyzstan after working as a legal intern at the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia, in Bishkek, last summer. Prior to attending law school, she worked as a legal investigator at the Public Defender’s Office in Bartow, Fla., and as a program coordinator at The Foundation for Sustainable Development, in India and Kenya. During this time, she also volunteered with the Refugee Education Sponsorship Program, in Florence, Italy, and Lakeland, Fla; at the Orphan’s Home of Grace, in Kenya; and as a volunteer photographer at Pak Visthapit Sangh (Pakistani Refugee Society), in India. While at HLS, she was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Human Rights Journal, which published her article “The Other Euro Crisis: Rights Violations Under the Common European Asylum System and the Unraveling of EU Solidarity.” She was a legal and policy intern at Pro Asyl in Frankfurt, Germany, a research assistant to Professor Alex Whiting and a legal intern at the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She also did clinical work at the Harvard International Human Rights Clinic and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. She also received one of the Dean’s Awards for Community Service on Class Day.
Elian Maritz ’13
Elian Maritz will work at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), in Washington, D.C., where she will focus on three specific projects: pro bono legal services, the antiwarehousing campaign and protecting unaccompanied migrant children. Before attending law school, Maritz, a 2007 graduate of Columbia University, volunteered for the U.S. Peace Corps, in El Salvador, where she worked on community development projects, such as organizing a fishing cooperative and a women’s artisanal jewelry group, as part of a municipal development program. While at HLS, she was co-president of the Harvard Law and International Development Society, managing editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and a co-founder of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, Harvard chapter. Last fall, as a clinical student researcher at Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, she helped develop a year-long project monitoring the situation of refugees from Syria in Lebanon and Jordan. During Winter Term 2012, she conducted research at the Refugee Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University Law School to support appeals processes for asylum applicants in Israel.
Elsa Meany ’13
Elsa Meany will work at Women’s Link Worldwide in Bogotá, Colombia, where she will pursue innovative gender rights advocacy. After graduating from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a BA in Latin American Studies and Spanish Literature, Elsa taught in Spain at bilingual public schools. She also spent time as a paralegal at Catholic Charities Legal Services for Immigrants in Milwaukee, Wisc., working with domestic violence survivors. At HLS, she served as vice president of La Alianza, general board member of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and as a member of HLS Advocates for Human Rights. She was also a clinical student at the Harvard International Human Rights Clinic and a legal intern at the Asociación Civil Por La Igualdad Y La Justicia in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Summer Moore-Estes ’13
Summer Moore-Estes will work as a staff attorney, focusing on immigration and asylum law, in a joint collaboration between the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and Greater Boston Legal Services. After graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006, she worked as a special education teacher in Moore, Okla., before joining the U.S. Peace Corps in Zambia, Africa. She later received her MA in International Law and Human Rights from the United Nations mandated University for Peace in 2010. At HLS, she was co-president of the Harvard Immigration Project, a general board member of the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and a research assistant for Clinical Professor Deborah Anker. She also was a clinical student at Making Rights Real: The Ghana Project and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. While in law school she spent her summers representing asylum seekers and working for the rights of immigrant workers. In the summer of 2011 she worked as the Cleary Gottlieb Summer Fellow at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and in 2012 she worked at the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.
Lena Silver ’13
Lena Silver will serve as a staff attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, in Chicago, where she previously worked as a law clerk. During her time at the center, she engaged in policy advocacy to ensure that students who are expectant parents or survivors of domestic or sexual violence have equal access to educational opportunities. Before attending law school, she worked as an intake, outreach, and referral intern at Legal Momentum- Advancing Women’s Rights and as an executive assistant at the California Women’s Law Center, before traveling to Cartagena, Colombia, to serve as a field coordinator and volunteer teacher at Worldteach. During her time in Cartagena, she founded a women’s empowerment group called Mujeres al Poder. Silver won Harvard Law School’s 2013 Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, performing the highest number of pro bono service hours in the Class of 2013. During her time at HLS, she provided 2,270 hours of free legal services. Her work included serving as the homelessness prevention law project clerk at Public Counsel Law Center, as a law clerk at American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Western Center on Law and Poverty and as a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. She also participated in the Prison Legal Assistance Project and received the James Vorenberg Equal Justice Summer Fellowship.
At the same time that it announced the recipients of the new Public Service Venture Fund, the Law School also announced the winners of three other fellowships for public service/public interest post-graduate work: the Skirnick Fellowships, the Kaufman fellowships, and the One Day’s Work Fellowships.
“These terrific new graduates and alumni will pursue a wide array of projects at an especially critical moment of challenge for nonprofit and governmental organizations,” said Dean Minow. “I am immensely indebted to Maria, Robert, and Gabriella Skirnick, and also to the late Walter Annenberg, for their vision and generosity in creating the Skirnick and Kaufman Fellowships. I also want to commend the many second-year Harvard Law Students and faculty members who each year fund the One Day’s Work Fellowship, contributing to support the public service aspirations of a graduating student. Together, all of these individuals will make a life-changing difference not only for the recipients of these fellowships, but also for the many people who will be lifted up by what these fellows will be able to achieve.”
The Skirnick Fellowships
The Skirnick Fellowships were established by Maria Ann Skirnick ’69 and Robert A. Skirnick, along with their daughter Gabriella Skirnick ’07, to promote public service. This year’s recipients of the Skirnick Fellowships are:
Lisa Friedman ’13
Lisa Friedman will work at East Bay Children’s Law Offices, where she will provide representation and advocacy to reduce the number of foster children entering the juvenile delinquency system in Alameda County, Calif. She spent the summer of 2012 as an intern at the law offices. Before attending law school, Friedman worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador. She also spent seven summers working at Camp Erutan, a camp program based in California, which temporarily reunites siblings separated by the foster care system. While at HLS, she interned at the California Attorney General’s Office and the Suffolk County Juvenile Court. She was also involved in Harvard Defenders, the Environmental Law Review, the Harvard Law School Education Advocacy Clinic and served as a student attorney at the Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Institute. She received the Best Appellee Brief recognition for the 1L Section Ames Moot Court Competition and received several Dean’s Scholar awards.
In addition to the Skirnick Fellowship, Friedman is also this year’s recipient of the One Day’s Work Fellowship, which is funded by Harvard Law School students who donate a day’s pay from summer jobs, along with faculty contributions, so that a graduating student can pursue a post-graduate public service job. “I am honored and humbled by this award and all it represents,” said Friedman. “Not only is it the chance to serve a community I care deeply about, but it is also a wonderful affirmation of the HLS community and our commitment to each other as well as to the broader public interest. I am beyond grateful to all those who contributed to make this fellowship possible.”
Laura King ’13
Laura King will work as a staff attorney in the Northern Rockies office of the Western Environmental Law Center. Prior to attending HLS, King worked as a 5th grade teacher on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and edited college composition textbooks in New York City. While at HLS, she served as a law clerk in the Northern Rockies office of Earthjustice, interned at the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and worked as a research assistant to Professor Wendy Jacobs. She was also a senior editor of the Harvard Environmental Law Review.
The Kaufman Fellowships
The Irving R. Kaufman Fellowships were created in recognition of Judge Kaufman’s distinguished career in public service and are made possible by a gift from the late Honorable Walter Annenberg, philanthropist and former ambassador to the Court of St. James. This year’s new Kaufman Fellows are:
Delphia Lim LL.M. ’13
Delphia Lim will be spending her fellowship year at Accountability Counsel, providing legal and strategic assistance to poor communities in developing countries harmed by development projects. She has served as a project leader and researcher for the Human Rights Resource Center in ASEAN; a legal skills instructor at the National University of Singapore; and a pro bono legal associate at Access Justice Asia LLP representing civil parties at the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia. She is also an associate fellow for the Asian Peace-Building and Rule of Law Program at Singapore Management University. While pursuing her LL.M. at HLS, Lim was the co-leader of a 2-semester project on anti-corruption for the Harvard Law and International Development Society, and a participant in the Harvard Negotiation Workshop. Lim, who received a Fulbright Grant and the Lee Kuan Yew Scholarship from Singapore’s Public Service Commission, ranked 5th in the Nationwide Qualifying Examinations for the Singapore Bar, after graduating from the National University of Singapore on the Dean’s List.
Valentina Montoya LL.M. ’13
Valentina Montoya will work as a litigator at the Center for Reproductive Rights in Bogotá, Colombia, and New York City. She received her LL.M. from Harvard after receiving three degrees from the Universidad de Los Andes: an LL.B, cum laude, a B.A. in political science, and a M.A. in Law. She also worked as a lecturer, adjunct teacher, teacher assistant, research assistant, and principal researcher at Universidad de Los Andes. In addition, she was a legal assistant on issues regarding women’s rights at Dejusticia in Bogotá, Colombia. Montoya received a merit-based Harvard-Los Andes Fund Scholarship and published several works related to issues of law, policy, migration, and women’s rights, while at HLS.
David Seligman ’10
David Seligman will work at the National Consumer Law Center, in Boston, Mass., providing direct legal services to low-income residents in the area of consumer protection with a focus on the effects of mandatory arbitration clauses. He has served as a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, for Judges Robert D. Sack and Susan L. Carney. He was also a law clerk for the Hon. Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts. While at HLS, he was an intern at Make the Road New York. As part of his work for the Harvard Law School Employment Civil Rights Clinic, Seligman represented clients in employment discrimination cases. His other clinical work included working with the New York City Law Department, drafting affidavits concerning environmental review for a major economic development project, and the National Employment Law Project, where he helped draft an amicus brief on labor law preemption for a case before the Seventh Circuit.
Claire Valentin ’11
Claire Valentin will provide comprehensive legal representation to unaccompanied immigrant youth on the North Shore of Massachusetts, through collaboration with the Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts. After graduating from HLS, she clerked for the senior judges of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. She is currently a law clerk to the Hon. A. Franklin Burgess Jr., District of Columbia Superior Court. Before attending law school, Valentin was a domestic issues program assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington, D.C. At HLS, Valentin was a clinical student in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and served as a legal intern at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, and at the Georgia Legal Services Farmworker Project. She was also president of the Harvard Immigration Project, a member of the Student Clinical Advisory Board and a submissions editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.