Featured Alumni
This past summer, as part of a team of trial attorneys in the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Civil Rights Division, Nonny Onyekweli ’16 helped secure a major victory for children with disabilities and their families. In July, the US District Court…
Growing up, Li Nowlin-Sohl ’11 (she/her) says, she thought of lawyers as “just angry people banging tables on TV.” But in 2006, while working on the first congressional campaign for now-Senator Peter Welch from Vermont, Nowlin-Sohl says, she began…
Right before her 1L year, Kate Sinding Daly ’97 spent a few months living in Los Angeles. Watching pollution fog the city during the day convinced Sinding Daly that she wanted to work in the environmental sector. “I began to see and really think…
When Zelma Acosta-Rubio MCJ ’89 was a young law student in her native Venezuela, she took a vacation to New York City. A friend had asked her to bring back a brochure about NYU Law’s Master of Comparative Jurisprudence (MCJ) degree. When she stopped…
When Helena Heath ’87 was in second grade, she recalls, a classmate was wrongly scolded for talking while the teacher’s back was turned. Heath spoke out in support of the other student. The teacher asked Heath to stay after class—and snapped that if…
Annie Vodhanel Preis ’13 first began thinking about pursuing a legal degree while she was working with non-government organizations in Indonesia during a post-college fellowship. She wanted to study law so she could help more people but was unsure…
Even when Sateesh Nori ’01 was a law student, he wasn’t sure he ultimately wanted to practice law. He was debating whether to get a teaching certificate instead of taking the bar exam when he saw a posting for a job at the Legal Aid Society…
When Emily Loeb ’09 was a new lawyer in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), she received advice from a mentor that has shaped her career, she says: Evaluate potential career moves not as steps to a goal, but based on the…
Derwyn Bunton ’98 was working as a juvenile public defender in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. The chaos that followed, he says, revealed to the nation how broken Louisiana’s criminal justice system was. “With so many eyes on…
After decades as a hedge fund portfolio manager for Elliott Management, Jay Newman LLM ’81, knew he had a book in him.
Jay Newman LLM ’81Newman’s debut novel, Undermoney, was published by Scribner last year. A political thriller packed with dark…
As an undergraduate at Harvard University, Jennifer Wu ’04 volunteered at a rape crisis center, helping counsel women on their trauma and their rights after an assault. Now a sought-after patent litigator who co-founded a new intellectual property…
When Seth Zachary LLM ’80 joined the New York office of Los Angeles-based Paul Hastings as partner in 1987, he was one of just two tax lawyers in the office—and shortly after he joined, the other tax attorney left for a government position. Zachary…
Marissa Alter-Nelson ’07 came to NYU Law to be a human rights lawyer, but discovered a passion for litigation while working as part of a trial team in the Federal Defender Clinic during her 3L year. Working as a litigation associate at Sidley Austin…
Michael Fitzpatrick MS CRS ’19 spent nearly a decade working on counterterrorism and privacy matters as an embedded attorney in the New York City Police Department (NYPD)’s Intelligence Bureau. As security threats online multiplied, Fitzpatrick felt…
In 2019, Cindy Chang ’02, then a Los Angeles Times staff writer covering the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), noticed that the LAPD—unlike similar metropolitan police departments—didn’t report demographic analysis on the drivers who were pulled…
Twenty-seven years as a tax attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton, says Peter Furci ’95, LLM ’99, have honed his inherent love for problem-solving. An expert in private equity and M&A as well as co-chair of the firm’s global tax department, Furci…
For Adrienne Austin ’05, combatting racist systems has been a common thread throughout a varied career. After NYU Law, she worked as a trial attorney at the Bronx Defenders, then spent two years at the Vera Institute of Justice, a research and…
From international human rights to voting rights to prison reform, and from policy work to litigation and then back to policy, the career of Naila Awan LLM ’12 has taken many turns, but collaboration and dedication to human rights have been constant…
Some nights (pre-pandemic), after playing a set with her rock band, New Day Dawn, Dawn Botti ’94 would be approached by a member of the audience. Often the person was a fan, but many times it was a fellow musician, asking her to look over a touring…
NYU Law Women presented Bridget McCormack ’91, Chief Justice at the Michigan Supreme Court, with the group’s 2022 Alumna of the Year award at a virtual event on February 10. A student organization whose mission is to help women succeed in law and to…