Student Spotlight: Christopher Arroyo ’28

Health Law and Policy Society, Co-President
NYU Law Run Club, Co-President
NYU Law Blood Drive, Co-Chair
Student Bar Association, Treasurer

How did you decide to pursue law?

The highlight of my undergraduate experience was Cornell University’s State Policy Advocacy Clinic, which inspired me both to go to law school and to pursue a career in New York government. The clinic is headed by a lawyer, Alexandra Dufresne, and she did a fantastic job of getting us right to work on public interest–oriented projects for New Yorkers while simultaneously teaching us how to navigate and influence New York’s policymaking systems. After drafting legislation for a bill of rights for incarcerated pregnant people, completing a state- and county-comparative report on funding of rural emergency medical services, and seeing how impactful and effective Professor Dufresne was, I was convinced that I’d be able to contribute the most to society through the law.

Last summer you were an intern at the Health Care Bureau of the Office of the New York State Attorney General, and before law school, you worked as a legislative budget analyst for health care policy in the New York State Assembly. Much of your academic focus and professional work has centered on the intersection of health, medicine, and the law. Why is that of importance to you?

My parents are both doctors, and they taught my siblings and me to deeply value our health, which naturally feeds into everything else we enjoy in life. My dad especially would spend a lot of time with me going through medical books, showing me how everything in the body is connected, how the body works, and how to keep it working the way it should. As I thought about this form of preventive medicine on a wider scale, I felt there was so much that society could do to enable everyone to live healthier and more fulfilling lives. Today, I continue to enjoy seeing how health and health law intersect with everything, especially when that means helping people to be healthy, avoid preventable hospitalizations, and spend their time on something else.

Which Law School class or experience has had the biggest impact on you?

Serving as the treasurer of the Student Bar Association has definitely had the biggest impact on me. I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to help almost every student organization on campus through this role and to advocate for all my peers, and I continue to be amazed by how much work and programming our student groups get done. It also reminds me of the fiscal work I was doing before law school as a legislative budget analyst for the New York State Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee and the ethos that “our budget is our values.” There’s something very special about working with amazing people and putting funds toward their highest uses that I hadn’t realized I missed so much!

I also want to highlight Property as a fantastic introduction to local government and how neighbors govern each other. Whether it’s through a covenant, an easement, or a common-interest community formation like a condominium or a cooperative, there are so many ways that individual people can have an impact on one another or their entire community through property law. Going far beyond just property, Professor Claire Priest’s class changed how I view all areas of the law with an emphasis on how the law is inherently “coded” to reward certain behaviors or groups.

What do you most like to do outside of class? What’s your favorite way to spend a day in New York City?

I really enjoy going to the gym or making use of some of the rings, monkey bars, and fitness equipment in parks around the city! Other than exercise or spending time with the NYU Law Run Club, I love playing chess, watching movies, and playing fingerstyle guitar.

My favorite way to spend a free day is to explore the city with my girlfriend—who’s a 2L at Columbia Law—my sister, my parents, or sometimes even my abuela!

Have you read any books or heard any podcasts lately that you would recommend?

I’m a longtime listener of the podcast Mostly Nitpicking, which is a movie review podcast that analyzes some of the weirder plot beats that make it onto the screen. To connect this to my time at NYU Law, Mostly Nitpicking has really helped me get better at remembering the stories we read about in cases and challenging the norms or details that we may be taking for granted!

Also, for anyone who plays chess or wants to start, Aron Nimzowitsch’s My System has been a great read for properly learning the fundamentals as well as how to subvert those fundamentals with a hypermodern approach to chess!