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Liman Law Fellowships

The Liman Center funds fellowships for Yale Law School graduates to spend a year working in public interest law in the United States. In recent years, the Center has also hosted a small number of in-residence Fellows from YLS and other law schools. In-residence Fellows do a mix of research, teaching, and clinical work. As of 2023, the Liman Center has supported more than 180 fellowships for law graduates.

The Liman Center’s Law Fellowships fund a year at a nonprofit, public interest legal organization based in the United States. These fellowships are open to individuals who are or will be graduates of Yale Law School before the fellowship begins.

Fellows-in-Residence

These fellows spend one to two years at Yale Law School where they join the Center’s research and teaching projects. Graduates of law schools who have done work thereafter are eligible to apply. Individuals who have held other fellowships, including those sponsored by the Liman Center, are eligible.

Law Fellowships

Through Liman Law Fellowships, graduates of Yale Law School join host organizations around the country to work on a myriad of issues addressing the many needs for representation, research, and innovation. Fellows have worked, for example, on environmental conservation, economic and housing insecurity, workplace discrimination, tribal governance, immigration detention, criminal law enforcement, and more. Former Liman Fellows today serve as state and federal judges, in the academy as professors and administrators, in public and private organizations, and some have founded nonprofit organizations.

Fellows receive an annual stipend of approximately $50,000. Host organizations generally cover the cost of health insurance and other benefits and always provide malpractice insurance. In some cases, with substantial financial support from the host organization, Liman Fellows have the opportunity to extend their fellowships for part or all of a second year.

Fellows file a mid-term and a final report with the Liman Center and attend the annual spring Liman Colloquium at YLS. In addition, Liman Fellows work with the Center and with others through organized mentorship connections and subject-area projects, email lists, and an e-newsletter. Fellows become part of a network and are expected to continue to participate after the fellowship year ends.

Applications for 2024–2025 Liman Law Fellowships will be accepted online via the YLS Public Interest Fellowship Common Application from January 2 to February 1, 2024. Before submitting application materials, applicants are expected to speak with Liman Center Director Jennifer Taylor and consult with former fellows.

Fellowships-in-Residence

Liman Center Fellowships-in-Residence are open to experienced law school graduates. In-residence Fellows contribute to the Center by helping to shape its research and programs and supervise students. Liman Center academic offerings include Liman Projects: Research for Reform, an experiential course that uses a variety of methods to inform significant changes in the law. In addition, each spring, the Liman Workshop is a two-hour seminar for law students. Topics vary—for example, in 2023, the workshop is Imprisoned: Construction, Abolition, Alternatives. Past workshops have included Rationing Access to Justice in Democracies: Fines, Fees, and Bail and Racial Justice and Immigrants' Rights: Debates and Dialogues. These fellowships generally begin in August before the start of the academic year. Compensation includes full benefits and a salary commensurate with experience.

In addition, such Fellows often work collaboratively with Yale Law School's clinical program, other parts of the University, and entities such as public defenders and community organizations in Connecticut. The Curtis-Liman Fellowship—established in 2020 to honor Professor Dennis Curtis, a co-founder of Yale Law School’s clinical program — enables a law school graduate to spend one or two years working on innovative criminal law, immigration, or other advocacy.

Current and former Fellows-in-Residence have worked on prosecutorial misconduct, prison systems’ responses to COVID, the fiscal impact of the legal system, and alternatives to sentencing in conjunction with the Federal Defender’s Office in the District of Connecticut. See below for a summary of the work of current and former Fellows-in-Residence.

Applications for Fellowships-in-Residence are welcome as of the fall of 2023. Please apply no later than February 2, 2024. Applicants are expected to discuss their projects with Liman Center Director Jennifer Taylor and reach out to former Fellows for advice before submitting an application. The Center has samples from past fellowship proposals. Visit the Apply page on the Liman Center website for details about application requirements and the submission process.

Curtis-Liman Fellowship

The Curtis-Liman Fellowship — established in 2020 to honor Professor Dennis Curtis, a co-founder of Yale Law School’s clinical program — enables a law school graduate to spend one or two years working on innovative criminal law, immigration, or other advocacy. Since Fall 2022, the Curtis-Liman Fellow has focused on alternatives to incarceration and the impact of fines, fees, and other costs associated with criminal law enforcement. The Fellowship is co-hosted by the Federal Defender Office (FDO) of Connecticut, the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization (LSO), and the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law (Liman Center), and involves a mix of client representation, clinical supervision, and directed research.

The Curtis-Liman Fellow is supervised by attorneys at the FDO, and legal faculty at the LSO and at the Liman Center. At the FDO, the Fellow is assigned a specialized caseload, with a focus on individuals subjected to supervision after conviction. This assignment aims to support clients returning from incarceration, identify the costs associated with post-release supervision, and challenge when needed, any conditions of community release that impose undue burdens or present obstacles to living and working in the community. During the spring semester, the Fellow helps supervise cases in collaboration with the LSO, co-teaches the Liman Workshop seminar, and works with a team of students enrolled in the Liman Center’s directed research class. See below for a summary of the work of current and former Curtis-Liman Fellows.

See this announcement for more information about the 2024-2025 Curtis-Liman Fellowship. Interested applicants must first contact FDO with application materials by October 1, 2023. Individuals seeking to apply should email a cover letter, a resume, a writing sample that demonstrates research skills, a list of references, and a law school transcript to Carly Levenson (carly_levenson@fd.org) and Kelly Barrett (Kelly_barrett@fd.org). Once FDO has agreed to serve as a host organization, sponsored individuals will be informed how to submit applications for the 2024-2025 Curtis-Liman Fellowship to the Liman Center. The Liman Center will accept applications thereafter; the application closes on February 3, 2024 and applicants are encouraged to contact Liman Director Jennifer Taylor (jennifer.taylor@yale.edu) before submitting materials.

Russell Bogue ’23 will join the Office of the Solicitor General for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., to work on litigation related to gun regulation and the meaning of the Second Amendment. His project will be in service of ensuring enforcement of D.C. firearms regulations and in conjunction with ongoing efforts of states seeking to preserve public safety. Bogue received his B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and his D.Phil. in political theory from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. At Yale, he has been an Articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal, a member of the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic, a Coker Fellow, and a research assistant.

Yael Caplan ’23 will join Pregnancy Justice in New York. Her project aims to limit efforts to criminalize decisions around pregnancy. She will provide direct representation of individuals and participate in lawsuits seeking structural protections against prosecutions. Caplan earned a B.A. in public policy and comparative human development from the University of Chicago. At Yale Law School, she is a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic and served as an Articles Editor for the Journal of Law and Feminism

Elizabeth Clarke ’23, the incoming Curtis-Liman Fellow, will be based at the Office of the Federal Defender for the District of Connecticut and Yale Law School. Clarke will focus on reducing the harms associated with federal supervised release for vulnerable populations, including individuals with substance use and mental health challenges. As part of her partnership with the Liman Center, Clarke will supervise students working on research and policy advocacy projects related to community supervision. Clarke received a B.A. in psychology from Cornell University. At Yale Law School, she is a research assistant at The Justice Collaboratory and a member of the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic.

Zoe Li ’23, this year’s Meselson Fellow, will spend her fellowship year with the MacArthur Justice Center in Chicago. Her project seeks to limit policing of school children and the discriminatory use of punitive fines and tickets for disciplinary infractions. After receiving her B.A. from the University of Michigan, Li worked as an educator and a programming consultant with Boston Public Schools and served as a Peace Corps education volunteer in Samoa. During law school, she has been a part of the Students’ Civil Rights Project at Public Justice, the Virginia Innocence Project, the Liman Projects on criminal and civil system reform, and the Access to Law School Program.

Juan Fernando Luna León ’23 will help support workers with UNITE HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles. His project will help individuals to enforce a municipal ordinance, enacted in June 2022, that provides protection for housekeepers facing sexual assault and harmed by unfair business practices. Luna León earned a B.A. in history from Texas A&M University. At Yale Law School, he is a member of the Workers and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, where he helped represent local unions in labor and legislative matters and families separated by the U.S. government.

Wynne Muscatine Graham ’22 will join the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program in Washington, D.C., as this year’s Resnik-Curtis Fellow. Her focus will be on solitary confinement and efforts to limit its use through state and federal appellate litigation and administrative reforms. That work will contribute to the national effort to end solitary confinement. Muscatine Graham received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University. At Yale Law School, she was a member of the Rule of Law Clinic and worked with the Liman Center on its 2021 report Time-In-Cell on solitary confinement. She is currently a law clerk for the Honorable David J. Barron of the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Katie Roop ’23 will spend her fellowship year at The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau in New York. Her project entails directly representing incarcerated individuals in their parole appeals, working on legislation to reform parole, and drafting materials to enable attorneys and parole applicants to navigate the process. Roop earned a B.A. in political science and history from Washington University in St. Louis. At Yale Law School, she is a student director of the Strategic Advocacy Clinic and previously served on the Clinical Student Board and the board of the Civil Rights Project. 

Rachel Talamo ’23 will join Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts where, through legislative advocacy and community organizing, she will work to establish an independent source of oversight of state prisons and jails and will participate in the litigation of an ongoing lawsuit. Talamo earned a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University. While at Yale Law School, she worked with Lecturer in Law Hope Metcalf to pass the PROTECT Act in partnership with Stop Solitary Connecticut. She was also a member of the Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic, a peer advocate, a National Lawyers Guild legal observer, and an editor of the Proceedings of the Rebellious Lawyering Conference.  

The work of continuing fellows is described below. 

Erin D. Drake ’20 will extend her fellowship at the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, where she focuses on using legal and organizing tools to protect the interests and rights of union members, many of whom are athletes from marginalized communities. Drake will build on her work in her second year and focus on growing the union's state-level engagement. Drake earned a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University. While at Yale Law School, she was a Coker Fellow, a member of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, and served as a peer advocate and as a board member of Yale Law Women (now YLW+). Previously, Drake clerked for Judge Robert L. Wilkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Diane P. Wood of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Aseem Mehta ’20, working with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, will continue his work to provide holistic representation to individuals held in immigration detention and support detained organizers in their efforts to challenge the conditions of their confinement, with the goal of complete decarceration. Mehta previously clerked for Judge Richard A. Paez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Edward M. Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. At Yale Law School, he was a member of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. Prior to law school, he was a Community Fellow with Immigrant Justice Corps, where he supported movements to stop detention and deportations in New York and South Texas. 

2022–2023
 
Brendan Bernicker, Resnik-Curtis Fellow, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center
Helia Bidad, Land Loss Prevention Project
Samuel Davis, ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation
Erin Drake, Women’s National Basketball Players Association
Hannah Duncan, Curtis-Liman Fellow, Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Connecticut
Grace Judge, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Flathead Reservation
Aseem Mehta, Meselson-Liman Fellow, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus
Medha Swaminathan, ACLU of Massachusetts
Chelsea Thompson, Gruber Fellow and Liman Affiliated Fellow, A Better Balance
Evan Walker-Wells, NAACP General Counsel’s Office in Atlanta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina
 
2021–2022 Fellowship Extensions
Sophie Angelis, Rights Behind Bars
Allison Durkin, Legal Aid Society of New York
Sophie Laing, Pine Tree Legal Assistance
Kshithij Shrinath, Bronx Defenders
 
2021–2022
 
Hannah Abelow, Queens Legal Services
Sophie Angelis, Rights Behind Bars
Jonathan Cohen (Resnik-Curtis Fellow), Rhode Island Center for Justice
Allison Durkin, The Legal Aid Society
Eli Feasley, Neighborhood Defender Service of Detroit
Duncan Hosie, ACLU
Sophie Laing, Pine Tree Legal Assistance
James Mooney, ACLU of Illinois
Isadora Ruyter-Harcourt, The Powell Project
Kshithij Shrinath (Meselson-Liman Fellow), The Bronx Defenders
 
2020–2021
 
Colin Antaya, Conservation Law Foundation
Josh Blecher-Cohen, ACLU of Illinois
Sam Frizell, Legal Aid Society of New York
Elise Grifka Wander, Office of the Ohio Public Defender
Nathan Leys, New Haven Legal Assistance Association
Kelley Schiffman, San Diego County Public Defender Office
Joseph Schottenfeld, NAACP
Mary Ella Simmons, Orleans Public Defenders
Alexander Wang (Curtis-Liman Clinical Fellow), Yale Law School
Megan Yan, ACLU of the District of Columbia
 
2019–2020
 
Tiffany Bailey, ACLU of Southern California
Catherine Chen, Medical-Legal Partnership Hawai’i
Diane de Gramont, National Center for Youth Law
Bassam Gergi, Fair Share Housing Center
John Giammatteo, Lutheran Social Services of New York's Immigration Legal Program
Diana Li Kim, Connecticut Division of Public Defender Services
Allison Morte, Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office
Alyssa Peterson, Center for Popular Democracy
Megha Ram, Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center
Adam Rice, Office of the Attorney General of Colorado
 
20182019
 
Skylar Albertson, The Bail Project
Benjamin Alter, NAACP
Olevia Boykin, Civil Rights Corps
Natalia Friedlander, Rhode Island Center for Justice
Joanne Lee, Gulfcoast Legal Services
Maya Menlo, Washtenaw County Office of the Public Defender
Elizabeth Pierson, Legal Action of Wisconsin
Yenisey Rodriguez, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia
Yusuf Saei, Muslim Advocates
Theo Torres, Federal Defender Program for Northern District of Illinois
Henry Weaver, Earthjustice
 
2017–2018
 
Celina Aldape, D.C. Law Students in Court, DC
Ryan Cooper, Travis County Mental Health Public Defender, TX
Lynsey Gaudioso, Public Advocates in San Francisco, CA
Carly Levenson, Connecticut’s Division of Public Defender Services, CT
Hava Mirell, Office of Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, RI
Nathan Nash, Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing Chicago, IL
My Khanh Ngo, Office of the Alameda County Public Defender, CA
Rachel Shur, Orleans Public Defenders, LA
 
2016–2017
 
Anna Arkin-Gallagher, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, New Orleans, LA
Caitlin Bellis, Public Counsel, Los Angeles, CA
Dwayne Betts, New Haven Office of the Public Defender, CT
Kory DeClark ,San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, CA
Corey Guilmette, Public Defender Association, Seattle, CA
Jamelia Morgan, ACLU’s National Prison Project, Washington, DC
Freya Pitts, Disability Rights Advocates, Berkeley, CA
Devon Porter, ACLU of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Abigail Rich, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Berkeley, CA
Ryan Sakoda, Committee for Public Counsel Services, Boston, MA
Jonas Wang, Civil Rights Corps, Washington, DC
Mary Yanik,New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, LA
 
2015–2016
 
Anna Arkin-Gallagher, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, New Orleans, LA
Caitlin Bellis, Public Counsel, Los Angeles, CA
Dana Montalto, Veterans Legal Clinic, Jamaica Plain, MA
Jamelia Morgan, ACLU’s National Prison Project, Washington, DC
Freya Pitts, Disability Rights Advocates, Berkeley, CA
Ryan Sakoda, Committee for Public Counsel Services, Boston, MA
Ruth Swift, Community Law Office, Birmingham, AL
Matthew Vogel, Capital Defense Unit at Orleans Public Defenders, New Orleans, LA
Adrien A. Weibgen, Urban Justice Center, New York, NY
Molly Weston, A Better Balance, New York, NY
Mary Yanik, New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, LA
 
2014–2015
 
Anna Arkin-Gallagher, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, New Orleans, LA
Josh Bendor, ACLU of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ
Emily Gerrick, Texas Fair Defense Project, Austin, TX
Dana Montalto, Veterans Legal Clinic, Jamaica Plain, MA
Matthew Vogel, Orleans Public Defenders, New Orleans, LA
Jessica Vosburgh, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Birmingham, AL
Adrien A. Weibgen, Urban Justice Center, New York, NY
Molly Weston, A Better Balance, New York, NY
 
2013–2014
 
Spencer Amdur, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, San Francisco, CA
Alyssa Briody, Juvenile Regional Services, New Orleans, LA
Burke Butler, Texas Civil Rights Project, Austin, TX
Katie Chamblee, Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta, GA
Jeremy Kaplan-Lyman, Bronx Defenders, NY
Caitlin Mitchell, Youth, Rights & Justice, Portland, OR
Ivy Wang, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, New Orleans, LA
Alyssa Work, Bronx Freedom Fund, NY
 
2012–2013
 
Chesa Boudin, San Francisco Public Defender's Office, CA
Forrest Dunbar, Alaska Office of Public Advocacy, AK
Romy Ganschow, Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, NY
Edward McCarthy, Connecticut Office of the Public Defender, CT
Yaman Salahi, ACLU of Southern California, CA
Rebecca Scholtz, Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis, MN
Sirine Shebaya, ACLU of Maryland, MD
Olivia Sinaiko, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, MK
Jenny Zhao, ACLU of Northern California, CA
 
2011–2012
 
Robert Braun, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, New Orleans, LA
Isabel Bussarakum, The Defender Association, Seattle, WA
Elizabeth Compa, Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta, GA
Daniel E. Mulkoff, New York Civil Liberties Union, New York, NY
Diala Shamas, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability, Flushing, NY
Emily Washington, Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, LA
Seth Wayne, Orleans Public Defenders, New Orleans, LA
 
2010–2011
 
Seth Atkinson, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington, DC
Ady Barkan, Make the Road New York, Brooklyn, NY
Monica Bell, Legal Aid Society, DC
Lindsay Nash, Cardozo Immigration Clinic, New York, NY
Megan Quattlebaum, Neighborhood Legal Services Association, Pittsburgh, PA
Elizabeth Guild Simpson, Southern Coalition for Social Justice Durham, NC
Adrienna Wong, ACLU of Texas, Austin, TX
 
2009–2010
 
Alicia Bannon, Brennan Center for Justice, NY
Josh Berman, Natural Resources Defense Council, Chicago, IL
Rebecca Engel, Bronx Defenders, NY
Jean C. Han , Ayuda, Washington, DC
Kathy Hunt Muse, New York Civil Liberties Union, NY
Sonia Kumar, ACLU of Maryland, MD
Margot Mendelson, University of Arizona, Tuscon; Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC
Kirill Penteshin, UNITE HERE Local 11, Los Angeles, CA
Benjamin Plener, Orleans Public Defenders, New Orlean, LA
Vasudha Talla, Sanctuary for Families, NY
 
2008–2009
 
Justin Cox, CASA of Maryland, Silver Spring, MD
Zahra Hayat, National Center for Youth Law, Oakland, CA
Stacie Jonas, Southern Migrant Legal Services, Nashville, TN
Deborah Marcuse, Office of the Mayor, New Haven, CT
Allegra McLeod, Immigration Justice Project, San Diego, CA
Marisol Orihuela, ACLU of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Michael Tan, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, New York, NY
Tianna Terry, Legal Aid Society, DC
 
2007–2008
 
Stephanie Biedermann, Disability Rights Advocates, Berkeley, CA
Jamie Dycus, ACLU Racial Justice Program, NY
Leah Fletcher, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Francisco, CA
Dan Freeman, NY Civil Liberties Union, New York, NY
Raquiba Huq, Legal Services of New Jersey, Edison, NJ
Michael Kavey, Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, New York, NY
Sia Sanneh, Legal Action Center, New York, NY
 
2006–2007
 
Alice Clapman, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, New York, NY
Sameera Fazili, Northern Initiatives, Chicago, IL
Paige Herwig, National Women’s Law Center, Washington, DC
Anna Rich, National Senior Citizens’ Law Office, Oakland, CA
Larry Schwartztol, Brennan Center for Justice, New York
Marc Silverman, Advocates for Children, New York, NY
Charisa Smith (’05), JustChildren, Richmond, VA
 
2005–2006
 
Jorge Baron, New Haven Legal Assistance Association, New Haven, CT
Kim Pattillo Brownson, ACLU of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Eliza Leighton, CASA of Maryland, Silver Spring, MD
Holly Thomas, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, NY
Sofia Yakren, Urban Justice Center, NY
 
2004–2005
 
Joshua Civin, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Washington, DC
Cyd Fremmer, EdLaw Project, Boston, MA
Robert Hoo, Legal Services of Northern California, Sacramento, CA
Tom Jawetz, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, DC
Lisa Powell, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Seattle, WA
 
2003–2004
 
Adam Grumbach, Legal Aid Society OF New York, NY
Kristen Jackson, Public Counsel Law Center, Los Angeles, CA
Grace Meng, Asian Law Caucus, San Francisco, CA
McGregor Smyth, Bronx Defenders, NY
 
2002–2003
 
Tania Galloni, Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, FL
Andrea Marsh, Texas Rural Legal Aid, Austin, TX
David Menschel, Innocence Project, Cardozo School of Law, NY
Amy Meselson, Legal Aid Society of New York, NY
 
2001–2002
 
Susan Hazeldean, Urban Justice Center, New York, NY
Serena Hoy, Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, Washington, DC
Joseph Luby, Public Interest Litigation Clinic, Missouri, MO
 
2000–2001
 
Marjorie Allard, Alaska Public Defender Agency, Anchorage, AK
Rebecca Bernhardt, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of Texas, San Antonio, TX
Kenneth Sugarman, ACLU of Northern California, San Francisco, CA
 
1999–2000
 
Paula Gaber, Western Center on Law & Poverty, Los Angeles, CA
Juliet McKenna, Lawyers for Children America, Washington, DC
Jessica Sager, All Our Kin, New Haven, CT
 
1998–1999
 
Lisa Daugaard, Seattle Defender Association, WA
Julia Greenfield, The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, San Francisco, CA
Douglas Stevick, Texas Rural Legal Aid, San Antonio, TX
 
1997–1998
 
Alison Hirschel, Arthur Liman Project on Advocacy for the Institutionalized Elderly, Ann Arbor, MI

Pardiss Kebriaei (2023–) As a Senior Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Kebriaei has worked on issues of civil and human rights for more than 20 years. For the past 10 years, her work has turned increasingly toward domestic prisons, including challenges to end solitary confinement and other inhumane conditions and sentences, including life sentences. Kebriaei’s commentary and scholarship on human rights and incarceration have appeared in magazines and journals including Harper’s MagazineThe NationRolling StoneThe Guardian, and the Yale Law & Policy Review and in the book Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict: Ethical, Legal, and Strategic Implications (University of Chicago Press, 2015). At the Liman Center, her research will include interdisciplinary work on the individual and collective health impacts of mass incarceration in the U.S. She will also contribute to Liman Center research and public education projects on solitary confinement and co-teach the Spring 2024 Liman Workshop.

Laura Fernandez ’02 (2014–) does research that focuses on questions of prosecutorial power, ethics, and accountability. Before joining Yale Law School, she was Senior Counsel at Holland & Knight, LLP, where she worked as a fulltime member of the Community Services Team. She also clerked for the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York, and was an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown Law Center, from which she obtained her LL.M. Fernandez is currently a Clinical Lecturer in Law and Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School.

Grace Li (2021–2023) has worked on a variety of projects since joining the Liman Center in 2021. She has co-taught the Liman Workshop, Imprisoned: From Construction to Abolition, supervised students making a Freedom of Information Act request related to the federal Bureau of Prison’s release to home confinement of individuals at risk of COVID, and contributed to the 2022 solitary confinement report and the development of a new digital dashboard, Seeing Solitary.

Brian Highsmith ’17 (2020–2022) remains an affiliate of the Liman Center. He has been central to the Center’s organization of a series of webinars on Fines, Fees, and Government Funding, which aim to bring together experts in public finance and in monetary sanctions to remedy the unjust use of money as punishment. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Government and Social Policy at Harvard University, and serving as a Fellow in Law, Ethics, and Public Policy at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs. Highsmith is also centrally involved in planning the April 2023 Liman Colloquium, Budgeting for Justice.

Jonathan Petkun ’19 (2020–2022) worked with Prof. Judith Resnik to explore how publicly available data can shed light on the structure and practices of the federal courts, and how data collection and dissemination could be improved to advance this understanding. Petkun is especially interested in how the legal and economic organization of large public institutions in the U.S.—particularly the military and state and federal courts—affect the lives of individuals who participate in them. Still an affiliate of the Liman Center, he is now an Associate Professor of Law at Duke Law School.

Zal Shroff (2020–2021) was central to the Liman Center’s efforts to get information to detainees in Connecticut about their eligibility to vote and to get their ballots counted. He was also one of the supervisors for clinical students in the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic. That work helped to obtain home confinement for people held at Danbury and to implement the settlement of a class action lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Prisons’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also worked on analyzing data on the use of solitary confinement. He is currently a Senior Staff Attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay area.

Alexandra Harrington ’14 (2018–2020) supervised students working on projects related to criminal justice reform and co-taught the Liman Workshop. Prior to the Liman Center, she worked at the Connecticut Division of Public Defender Services in the Innocence Project/Post-Conviction Unit, where she helped to shape and coordinate the Division’s representation of individuals who were sentenced as juveniles in adult court to lengthy prison terms. Her work grew out of a law school project with the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic advocating for fair sentencing and second-look review for these individuals. Harrington is an Associate Professor, Director of the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic, and Director of the Innocence and Justice Project at the University at Buffalo School of Law.

Kristen Bell (2016–2018) collaborated with faculty, directors of state prison systems, and students to research the number of people held in solitary confinement as a Senior Liman Fellow in Residence. She also structured and supervised student research projects related to criminal law; cotaught a seminar on imprisonment, fines, and fees; and was an active participant in the biweekly Legal Theory Workshop. Prior to her fellowship, as a student at Stanford Law School, she interned at the Southern Center for Human Rights and the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, taught seminars on mass incarceration at a state prison, and participated in the Three Strikes Project and Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. She is now currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law.

Sarah Baumgartel (2015–2016) helped supervise the early stages of the Criminal Justice Clinic’s parole study when she was the Senior Liman Fellow in Residence. The clinic had undertaken this study as part of the governor’s Second Chance Society initiative, which was aimed at reforming the state’s criminal justice system and reducing the prison population. Prior to her fellowship, she was an Assistant Federal Defender with the Federal Defenders of New York. She was also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School from 2014 to 2015. Baumgartel is currently an attorney with Federal Defenders of New York.

Megan Quattlebaum ’10 (2013–2014), who had also been a Liman Law Fellow, focused on prisons and the criminal justice system as a Senior Liman Fellow in Residence. Quattlebaum co-taught the Liman Workshop and supervised students in the Liman Practicum. Projects included research on the regulation of long-term isolation in prisons and gender disparities in the federal correctional system. As a Liman Fellow in 2010, Quattlebaum worked at the Neighborhood Legal Services Association in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she developed and implemented a program to provide civil legal services for people with criminal records. Quattlebaum is currently the Director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center in New York City.

Sia Sanneh ’07 (2011–2013) continued to work on Doherty’s project examining how state ethics regimes might be applied to address instances of documented prosecutorial misconduct. She supervised students undertaking a survey of the regulation of long-term isolation in the fifty states and the federal prison system. She also worked on a project addressing the parental rights of incarcerated women in Connecticut. Students produced a self-help manual that explained state policies and how the family law system works. Prior to that, as a Liman Fellow in 2007, she studied the collateral consequences of school-based arrests. Sanneh is currently a Senior Attorney at Equal Justice Initiative, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Nina Rabin ’03 (2012–2013) helped teach the workshop Crime and Migration, which analyzed the treatment of noncitizens in the criminal justice system, the extent to which immigrations violations are and should be treated as criminal violations, and the degree to which the form and function of our immigration and criminal justice systems are separate versus intertwined. She also co-taught a workshop exploring the concept of borders and how, in various contexts, law, political orders, and social movements construct, invoke, rely on, and relax borders. Rabin is the Director of the Immigrant Family Legal Clinic at UCLA Law.

Fiona Doherty ’99 (2011) was the first Senior Liman Fellow in Residence. With support from the Vital Projects Fund, she joined the Liman Program in the spring semester of 2011 to expand work related to the criminal justice system. Doherty explored the nature of probation conditions and the proportionality of sanctions for violations. She also examined another set of questions related to how classification, punishment, and grievance mechanisms work within prisons, and how students and faculty might contribute to improving those processes. In conjunction with current and former Fellows, she considered how to address administrative segregation, supermax, and death row. Doherty is currently Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School.

Elizabeth Clarke ’23, (2023-2024) will be based at the Office of the Federal Defender for the District of Connecticut and Yale Law School. Clarke will focus on reducing the harms associated with federal supervised release for vulnerable populations, including individuals with substance use and mental health challenges. As part of her partnership with the Liman Center, Clarke will supervise students working on research and policy advocacy projects related to community supervision. Clarke received a B.A. in psychology from Cornell University. At Yale Law School, she was a research assistant at The Justice Collaboratory and a member of the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic.

Hannah Duncan ’21 (2022–2023) began working with the Federal Defender's Office in New Haven in September 2022. In that role, she supports clients serving terms of supervised release and probation so as to understand their experiences and what changes in law and practice would limit the potential return to incarceration. Duncan is developing a database of reentry services for justice-involved individuals in Connecticut and evaluating the constitutionality of conditions of release. In the spring, she will supervise law students in this work and join in teaching the Liman Workshop and in other programs.

Skylar Albertson ’18 (2021–2022), who was also a former Liman Law Fellow, spent a year working with Prof. Fiona Doherty in YLS’s Criminal Defense Clinic, supervising clinic students, representing clients at parole hearings, and expanding criminal defense education in LSO. Albertson was central in researching and writing the 2022 edition of the Correctional Leadership Association and Liman Center report on solitary confinement, as well as in the development of a new website to increase public access to data from that report as well as prior editions.

Alex Wang ’19 (2020–2021), the inaugural Curtis-Liman Fellow, worked closely with Prof. Lucas Guttentag on tracking and documenting changes in immigration policy that took place between 2017–2021 as well as measuring their impact. He also provided vital assistance to a Liman Center project to increase access to voting for people in Connecticut jails and prisons.