Administrator Spotlight: Jennifer Weiss-Wolf

Executive Director, Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center

Tell us the story of how you came to work at NYU Law? Were you always in your current position?

I have been working at NYU Law since 2010, when I joined the Brennan Center for Justice. Over the span of 12 years there, I held several roles including vice president for development; I also served as the center’s inaugural Women and Democracy Fellow. Since 2022, I have been the executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center’s executive director (BWLC).

I attended law school a few blocks north of Washington Square Park at Cardozo Law, and my 1L summer internship in 1990 was supported through a Root-Tilden stipend from NYU Law. Suffice it to say the Law School has been central—or at least adjacent—to my career path for decades.   

What’s a typical day for you like?

I am very much an “in-office” person and spend most of my days on campus. I do a whole lot of writing—I’m a weekly contributor to a new media site The Contrarian, I run Ms. Magazine’s Women and Democracy platform, I regularly publish op-eds in mainstream outlets like TIME  and Oprah, and I am writing a book about menopause policy—so often I’m at my desk pounding on a keyboard. 

Advancing the BWLC’s mission entails a combination of law student engagement, public programming, contributing to advocacy initiatives, and building a cadre of stakeholders. So a typical day will also find me networking, advising, connecting…all the things.

The scope of our work varies week to week. Within the last year, the BWLC hosted US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on campus. We held an onstage talk at the Broadway show SUFFS to pay homage to iconic NYU Law alumna and suffragist Inez Milholland. We published a report, Gender and Democracy: Make The Connection, launched at the Ford Foundation. We formed an advisory board comprised of influential women in all areas of private and public sector practice.

At the moment we’re fresh off the annual leadership development intensive we designed for NYU Law. It is held each January for the 1L cohort of BWLC Fellows, and this year marked our seventh class. We are now adapting elements of the curriculum for law firms, as well as a women judges’ association, which is exciting.

We hold weekly events and are currently planning for our Dechert Symposium in March, which will explore the impact of the Dobbs decision on collateral issues like IVF, cancer care, and women’s midlife health, and point to policy solutions.

A typical day also includes reveling in my new status as an Upper West Side empty nester, after 20-plus years in Maplewood, New Jersey. Mornings start with 7 a.m. barre class or a walk in Riverside Park. As part of my 2025 resolution to lean into joy, I recently joined a community rock choir! Every Tuesday night you can find me belting out the best of Green Day and the Jackson 5.       

What’s the most challenging thing about what you do? And what’s the most rewarding?

Supporting women’s leadership in law and society, especially at this moment, is challenging and rewarding at once. And undeniably urgent, which is ultimately what I love most about my work. I’ve been committed to women’s rights my entire career. It is why I went to law school and what drew me to NYU Law’s extraordinary constellation of academic centers. The BWLC offers a perfect balance of inward-facing community and outward-facing impact. I appreciate the multi-faceted approaches to law and policy I have been able to explore at both the BWLC and the Brennan Center—bolstered by NYU Law’s own rich history at the forefront of women’s advancement in the legal profession. 

At the BWLC, our guiding principle is to “pay it forward, pay it back, and pay it sideways.” Working alongside leaders who take that to heart—especially BWLC founders Sheila Birnbaum ’65 and Sara Moss ‘74, and BWLC faculty director and Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor Melissa Murray—is surely among the most rewarding parts of what I do.

What do you wish you’d known about the Law School on your first day of working here?

I am riveted by the way its institutional functions interact and how the sum of the behind-the-scenes parts make the whole so impressive. Since day one at the BWLC, I have been blessed with an abundance of camaraderie—from colleagues in DART [Office of Development and Alumni Relations], Communications, the Office of Student Affairs, the Dean’s Office, fellow Center Directors, and the team at the Reproductive Justice Clinic—all of whom are supremely professional, creative, generous, dedicated, and fun.

What is your favorite spot on campus, and why?

The Wilf rooftop! I know Wilf Hall is a mystery to most. But if you navigate up to the sixth floor, which is where my office is, we have a glorious private terrace—perfect for scenic lunches and sublime sunsets. My more serious answer would be Lester Pollack Colloquium. Holding events there is the next best thing to being outdoors, with that panoramic view. And no one is ever NOT impressed with the UN-style microphones and circular seating arrangement.