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Liman Law Fellowships

About 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. These fellowships are open to individuals who are or will be graduates of Yale Law School before the fellowship begins. The center also hosts a small number of in-residence fellows from Yale Law School and other law schools.

To date, the Liman Center has supported more than 200 fellowships for law graduates.

Law Fellowships

Through Liman Law Fellowships, graduates of Yale Law School join host organizations around the country or the Center.  Focused on the United States, projects for example have addressed economic and housing insecurity, workplace discrimination, tribal governance, immigration detention, criminal law enforcement, and more. More than 80 percent of the former Fellows are in the public sector – at NGOs, in the academy, in government as legislators, judges, or executive officials, and some have founded or steer nonprofit organizations.

Fellows receive an annual stipend, set through Yale Law School, of approximately $60,000. 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 midterm 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 a newsletter. Fellows become part of a network and are expected to continue to participate after the fellowship year ends.

Applications for 2026–2027 Liman Fellowships will be accepted online, via the YLS Fellowships Common Application, from January 5 to February 4, 2026.  Before submitting materials, applicants work to develop ideas and projects through consultation with Executive Director Kate Braner and former fellows. Some applicants focus on work in Connecticut, such as with the Center and the Federal Public Defender’s Office or other institutions in the state.  

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 have included “Imprisoned: Construction, Abolition, Alternatives;” “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. 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.

Applications for fellowships in residence are welcome as of the fall of 2025. Please apply no later than February 2, 2026. Applicants are expected to discuss their projects with Executive Director Kate Braner and reach out to former fellows for advice before applying. The center has samples from past fellowship proposals. Visit the Apply page for details about application requirements and the submission process.

Designated Fellowships

Liman Law Fellowships include four designated fellowships: the Curtis-Liman Fellowship, the Malone-Liman Fellowship, the Meselson-Liman Fellow, and the Resnik-Curtis Fellowship. These fellowships are granted as part of the YLS Common Fellowship Application process. The Curtis-Liman Fellowship requires a special application process, outlined below.

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 cohosted 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, 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 to living and working in the community. During the spring semester, the fellow helps supervise cases in collaboration with the LSO, coteaches 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.

Interested applicants must first contact FDO with application materials by October 1, 2025. 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 2026-2027 Curtis-Liman Fellowship to the Liman Center. The Liman Center will accept applications thereafter; the application closes on February 2, 2026, and applicants are encouraged to contact Liman Center Executive Director Kate Braner (katherine.braner@yale.edu) before submitting materials.

Donovan Bendana has joined GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) in Boston, Massachusetts. Through direct representation, litigation, policy advocacy, and public education, he is working to support safe, inclusive, and affirming school environments. Bendana received a B.A. in political science and international comparative studies from Duke University. At Yale Law School, he was a member of the Reproductive Rights and Justice Project, Veterans Legal Services Clinic, and the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.

Natalie Cauley, as the Meselson-Liman Fellow, is a part of the asylum and detention team at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center in Albuquerque. Her project focuses on providing direct representation in immigration court and improving conditions in New Mexico’s migrant detention facilities. Cauley has experience seeking to lessen the harms of conditions of confinement from her work at the ACLU of Alaska Prison Project. Before joining the ACLU, Cauley clerked for the Alaska Court of Appeals and Alaska Superior Court. She received her B.A. in economics and French from Virginia Tech and graduated in 2021 from Yale Law School, where she worked with the Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic and was a co-editor-in-chief for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.

Lyle Cherneff has joined the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to assist in launching a new program to provide free, pre-arraignment legal representation to people arrested in Hennepin County. Cherneff received a B.A. in history and gender and sexuality studies from Brown University. At Yale Law School, he was an editor of the Yale Journal for Law and Feminism and a member of the Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic. Cherneff published a note in the Yale Law Journal on popular constitutionalism in the Reconstruction era. After graduation, he clerked in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Hannah Friedle, the Curtis-Liman Fellow, is co-teaching the Liman Workshop, collaborating with the clinical program, and working at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Connecticut. Friedle graduated from North Central College in 2018 with a B.A. in political science and from Northwestern Law School in 2023 where she worked in the Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Appellate Advocacy Center, representing clients who were incarcerated and on supervised release. Friedle clerked for two years in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Charlie Jiang is continuing for a second year as a Liman Fellow at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Boston, Massachusetts, where he works on issues to lessen racism, improve respect for working-class Asian Americans, and enhance community safety. Jiang has represented individuals attacked due to anti-Asian animus. He is contributing to legislative efforts to improve access to healthcare and other public services. Jiang received a B.S. in engineering physics from Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he was a member of the Community and Economic Development Clinic and an articles editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review.

William Krueger is based at ArchCity Defenders in St. Louis, Missouri. He is supporting a tenants’ union to improve housing conditions and lessen high rents and representing people facing eviction. Krueger had been an organizer for voter protection and better housing as well as for progressive campaigns. Krueger earned his B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. At Yale Law School, he was part of the Housing Clinic and served as the campaigns co-chair for YLS Democrats, as well as a board member for the Capital Assistance Project and the Election Law Society.

K.N. McCleary has joined Upper Seven in Helena, Montana, to work on the impact of criminal law on members of Indian Tribes and to address the conditions of confinement in jails. McCleary is Little Shell Ojibwe and grew up on the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana. They earned a B.A. from Yale College in 2018 and then served as the Legislative Assistant on American Indian Affairs to former Senator Jon Tester in Washington, D.C. At Yale Law School, McCleary served in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, was submissions editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, and was Co-President of Trans @YLS and of the Native American Law Students Association. They clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pablo Moraga, at Democracy Forward in Washington, D.C, is working to protect initiatives that welcome all people to education and workplaces. There, he defends equitable government programs and works on limiting efforts to end measures shaped to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion. After receiving a B.A. in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, Moraga worked at California Rural Legal Assistance, joining low-income LGBTQ+ farmworkers in efforts to protect their rights. At Yale Law School, Moraga was a member of the Worker and Immigrant Rights’ Advocacy Clinic, an articles editor for the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, and Co-President of OutLaws.

Caroline Parker is the inaugural Malone-Liman Fellow. She joined Towards Justice in Denver, Colorado, a nonprofit that represents workers. Parker is assisting low-wage clients facing challenges related to their housing, investigating tenants’ living conditions and the management practices of landlords, and studying problems of workers living in employer-controlled housing in remote areas. Parker also is helping coordinate Denver-area organizers working to sustain tenants’ collective bargaining. She received a B.A. from the University of Virginia. Before Yale Law School, Parker worked in the Office of Colorado’s Child Protection Ombudsman, investigating citizen complaints about the child welfare system and developing legislative reforms. At Yale Law School, she was a member of the Community and Economic Development Clinic, a features editor for the Yale Law Journal, and the co-president of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) student group.

Inbar Pe'er, based at the Governors Action Alliance, is developing polices to protect the rule of law; her focus is on public health, reproductive freedom, and federal funding. Pe'er received her B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University. At Yale Law School, she was a Hebert Hansell Student Fellow for the Center for Global Legal Challenges, a student director of the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic, a teaching assistant for courses in civil procedure, constitutional law, and international law, and co-chapter director of the Yale International Refugee Assistance Project.

Grace Watkins, the Resnik-Curtis Fellow, is working in the Office of the Public Defender in San Diego County, California, on litigation on behalf of people who have been convicted and developing resources to support historical research and statistical analysis. Watkins received her B.A. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and her M.St. in history from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is currently a D.Phil. student in history at the University of Oxford. At Yale Law School, she was a Coker Fellow, a Legal History Fellow, and a member of the Reentry Clinic. Watkins published “Piety Police” in the Yale Law Journal, a note on how law enforcement and religious discipline intersect at faith-based universities.

Kevin Z. Yang has joined the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Appeals Bureau in New York City, where he represents individuals in parole hearings and appeals; he focuses on cases where parole was denied because of the nature of the crime or based on unproven information. Yang received a B.A. in political science from Williams College. At Yale Law School, he was a student director for the Civil Rights Advocacy Clinic and worked on parole advocacy and post-conviction relief for five semesters. He was also a member of the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic and the Appellate Litigation Project and a notes and comments editor for the Yale Law Journal.

2024-2025

Ryanne Bamieh, Resnik-Curits Fellow, Public Defender’s Office in Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara, CA 

Gregory Briker, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Washington, D.C. 

Nathan Cummings, Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, IL

Ibrahim Diallo, Curtis-Liman Fellow, Office of the Federal Defender for the District of Connecticut and Yale Law School, New Haven, CT

Ellie Driscoll, Meselson-Liman Fellow, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Washington, D.C. 

Jonathan Gibson, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program, Washington, D.C. 

Danny Haidar, Michigan Attorney General’s Office, Lansing, MI

Charlie Jiang, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Boston, MA

Zoe Kreitenberg, ACLU of Massachusetts, Boston, MA

Terin Patel-Wilson, NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Prepared to Vote and Voting Rights Defender team, New York, NY

Continuing Fellows

Yael Caplan, Pregnancy Justice, New York, NY

Juan Fernando Luna León, UNITE HERE Local 11, Los Angeles, CA

Wynne Muscatine Graham, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program, Washington, D.C.

Katie Roop, Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau, New York, NY

Rachel Talamo, Prisoners' Legal Services, Boston, MA

2023-2024

Russell Bogue, Office of the Solicitor General for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C.

Yael Caplan, Pregnancy Justice, New York, NY. 

Elizabeth Clarke, Curtis-Liman Fellow, Office of the Federal Defender for the District of Connecticut and Yale Law School, New Haven, CT

Zoe Li, Meselson Fellow, MacArthur Justice Center, Chicago, IL

Juan Fernando Luna León, UNITE HERE Local 11, Los Angeles, CA. 

Wynne Muscatine Graham, Resnik-Curtis Fellow, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program in Washington, D.C.

Katie Roop, The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau in New York, NY

Rachel Talamo, Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, Boston, MA

Fellowship Extensions

Erin D. Drake, Women’s National Basketball Players Association

Aseem Mehta, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, San Francisco, CA

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

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

2018–2019

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

Ibrahim Diallo (2025-2026), the 2024-2025 Curtis-Liman Fellow, will become a senior fellow in residence. Diallo co-teaches the Liman Workshop, collaborates with the clinical program, and works at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Connecticut. He graduated from Trinity College in 2011 with a B.A. in International Relations and from Columbia Law School in 2020. In law school, Diallo was named a Lowenstein Public Interest Fellow, founded an externship program for law students to work with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), and won the Constance Baker Motley Prize, the Samuel I. Rosenman Prize for Academic Excellence in Public Law, and the Emil Schlesinger Labor Law Prize. After graduation, he was a staff attorney with the NYTWA and clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Laura Fernandez ’02 (2014–present) is a senior Liman fellow in residence, clinical lecturer in law, and research scholar in law at Yale Law School. Her research 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 full-time member of the Community Services Team. Fernandez clerked in the Eastern District of New York and was an E. Barrett Prettyman fellow at Georgetown Law Center, where she obtained her LL.M. She holds an A.B. in Literature from Harvard College and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Pardiss Kebriaei (2023–2024), 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 Magazine, The Nation, Rolling Stone, The 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.

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 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.

Hannah Friedle (2025-2026), the incoming Curtis-Liman Fellow, will co-teach the Liman Workshop, collaborate with the clinical program, and work at the Federal Defenders Office for the District of Connecticut. Friedle graduated from North Central College in 2018 with a B.A. in Political Science and from Northwestern Law School in 2023. At Northwestern, she worked in the center on Wrongful Convictions and the Appellate Advocacy Center, representing clients who were incarcerated and on supervised release. Friedle is currently clerking in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Ibrahim Diallo (2024-2025), currently a Liman Senior Fellow in Residence, graduated from Trinity College in 2011 with a B.A. in International Relations and from Columbia Law School in 2020. In law school, Diallo was named a Lowenstein Public Interest Fellow, founded an externship program for law students to work with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), and won the Constance Baker Motley Prize, the Samuel I. Rosenman Prize for Academic Excellence in Public Law, and the Emil Schlesinger Labor Law Prize. After graduation, he was a staff attorney with the NYTWA and clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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.

Liman Fellows

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