Liman Center Announces 2026-2027 Fellows in Public Interest Law

The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law welcomes its 2026 law fellows. Starting next fall, these fellows will be working to lessen the challenges of accessing the legal system and vindicating rights. Including this new cohort, the Liman Center has since its inception in 1997 supported more than 220 graduates of the Yale Law School for these year-long fellowships. This year’s fellows will focus on issues related to safety and security for workers, immigrants, criminal defendants before and after trial, individuals making choices about reproduction, and states’ efforts to protect their residents. In addition, two current fellows will have extensions to continue their efforts on behalf of tenants and on behalf of freedom to express gendered identities. Fellows will be hosted by organizations in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, D.C.

Three of the incoming fellows will hold specially designated fellowships. The Resnik-Curtis Fellowship was established by former fellows in 2017 in celebration of the center’s 20th year. It honors Judith Resnik, the Center’s founding director, and Dennis Curtis, clinical professor emeritus and a pioneer in Yale Law School’s clinical program. The Meselson Fellowship was created in 2018 in memory of Amy Meselson, a 2002 Liman Fellow who worked tirelessly on behalf of immigrant children. The Malone-Liman Fellowship, created in 2025, is sponsored by Patrick and Vicki Malone to enable individuals to have more access to legal remedies. 

Hannah Berkman ’26, the Resnik-Curtis Fellow, will join the New York Attorney General’s Office to work with the Office’s Special Counsel for Reproductive Justice. Her project focuses on New York’s shield law, enacted to protect individuals seeking or providing reproductive health care or gender affirming care and who are faced with investigations and threats of legal liability from entities or individuals based in other states. The goals include enforcing New York statutes that protect health data, permitting individuals to make health care decisions for themselves, and enabling medical professionals to provide care. 

Berkman graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in media studies and psychology and an M.A. in global studies. At Yale Law School, she is a member of the Gender and Reproductive Justice Clinic and of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic and a forum editor for the Yale Law Journal.

Mehrdad Dariush ’26 will be at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, based in Washington, D.C. Dariush will focus on working conditions and collective bargaining rights for delivery drivers employed by subcontractors. He will support efforts to implement the proposed New York City Delivery Protection Act, which requires last-mile delivery companies to obtain city licenses, abide by local, state, and federal laws, and employ their drivers rather than rely on third parties. Dariush earned a B.A. in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies from Columbia University and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from New York University. At Yale Law School, from which he will graduate in 2026, Dariush has been co-chair of the Law and Political Economy student group, a member of the Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic, and an articles editor for the Yale Journal of International Law. 

Camilo Duran ’26, the Meselson Fellow, will work with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on a project aiming to lessen unlawful immigration detention. Duran will represent immigrants seeking release from detention, and he will train and support other attorneys providing such legal services. After earning his B.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics in 2021 from the University of Pennsylvania, Duran worked at a law firm where he helped lawyers representing individuals alleging police had violated their civil rights. While at Yale Law School, Duran has been part of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic and the Capital Habeas Unit at the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He serves as a mentor for the Launchpad Scholars Program and as co-president of Trans@YLS.

Jorge Ledesma ’26 will join the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office to support work on the limits of federal government authority to require states and localities to assist national immigration efforts. His focus, at times working with other localities, will be on legal challenges to actions that impose conditions on or withdraw federal grants. Ledesma received his A.B. in social studies from Harvard University and an MPhil in comparative social policy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar. At law school, from which he will graduate in 2026, he has served as co-chair of the Yale Law School Student Representatives, student director of the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, and notes and comments editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Fumika Mizuno ’26 will join Pregnancy Justice in New York, where she will work on behalf of people charged with crimes related to pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. Clients in states including Alabama, Oklahoma, and South Carolina have challenged the reliability of evidence and of testing, as well as the propriety of the prosecutions themselves. At Yale Law School, she has been a member of the Immigrant Rights Clinic, Mental Health Justice Clinic, and the Global Health and Justice Practicum. She received a B.A. in politics from Princeton University.

Jake Reagan ’26 will join the Colorado Solicitor General’s Office, where he will work with the Office’s Federal Issues Unit. His project will focus on protecting Coloradans’ civil rights by responding to impermissible federal action through emergency litigation and coordination with other states. Reagan received his B.A. in political science and Spanish from the University of Colorado Boulder and a senior-status B.A. from the University of Oxford, where, as a Rhodes Scholar, he studied philosophy, politics and economics. At Yale Law School, Reagan has been a Coker Fellow, an articles and essays editor of the Yale Law Journal, and a member of the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic. 

Emma Roberts ’25 will join the Federal Defender’s Office for the District of Connecticut. Her project will focus on decreasing pretrial detention through improving access for defendants to services to support their pretrial release. After graduating from Bowdoin College with a B.A. in sociology, Roberts worked as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in India, an organizer on various political campaigns, and a barista. At Yale Law School, she was a member of the Mental Health Justice Clinic, a student director of the Liman Center, and a board member of the Yale Civil Rights Project. Roberts is currently clerking for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.  

Katherine Salinas ’25 will join the Federal Defender’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. Her project focuses on limiting the use of supervised release, which judges often include in sentences of people convicted of federal crimes. Her efforts will include lessening and individualizing the use of conditions imposed, expanding the practice of terminating supervision early, and defending those alleged to have violated conditions. Salinas received her B.A. in ethnicity, race and migration from Yale University. At Yale Law School, Salinas was a student director of the Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic and the Liman Center and a forum editor on the Yale Law Journal. She is clerking for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Neha Srinivasan ’25, the Malone-Liman Fellow, will join Lawyers for Good Government’s Project Corazón to expand access to legal resources for detained migrants. Her project centers on creating model motions and practice guides, training volunteer attorneys, and representing people in immigration habeas and bond cases. In addition, she will be part of efforts to examine the safety of detention centers and their compliance with legal standards. Srinivasan earned her B.S. in international studies and B.A. in Spanish from Indiana University. At Yale Law School, she served as student director of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, co-chair of the Immigrant Justice Project, policy editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review, and co-chair of the Student Representatives. Srinivasan is currently clerking for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Ruth Zheng ’26 will work with the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Zheng’s project will focus on strengthening consumer protections at the local level in response to federal actions that have weakened the roles of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other agencies. The City Attorney’s Office will evaluate where municipal consumer protections can be expanded, develop legal theories to increase safety, investigate complaints, and join other cities in efforts to maintain the vitality of federal agencies, including the CFPB, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Trade Commission. Zheng received an A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard College. At Yale Law School, she is involved in the Law and Political Economy student group, a member of the Appellate Litigation Project, and an Articles Editor for the Yale Law Journal.

In addition to this year’s new fellows, three 2025-2026 fellows will continue at their work at their host organizations.

Donovan Bendana ’25 is at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law) in Boston, Massachusetts, where he works on behalf of LGBTQ+ youth. In the first fellowship year, Bendana helped with lawsuits aiming to safeguard transgender adolescents’ access to medical care, the privacy of their health records, and access to education and fair treatment at schools. In his second year, he will continue efforts to defend access to health, education, and equal treatment. 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.

William Krueger ’24 is at ArchCity Defenders in St. Louis, Missouri, where he represents tenants contesting evictions and helps support their organizations. In his first year, he supported We the Tenants, a growing campaign that has come to include hundreds of members. In his second year, he will support collective efforts of tenants in large housing complexes and work on efforts to establish a right to counsel for tenants facing eviction in St. Louis County. He will also support We the Tenants in discussions of the impact of city and county budgets on access to housing. Krueger earned his B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. At Yale Law School, he participated in the Housing Clinic and served as a Board Member for the Capital Assistance Project and the Election Law Society.

Pablo Moraga ’25 is at Democracy Forward in Washington, D.C., where he works to protect initiatives welcoming everyone to education, employment, and public spaces. During his first year, Moraga helped with litigation aiming to prevent cancellations of federal grants to universities and nonprofit organizations. In his second year, Moraga will concentrate on limiting censorship of history and science in national parks. Moraga received a B.A. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. 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.
 

Through the work of faculty, students, and fellows, the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School aims to improve the ability of individuals and groups to obtain fair treatment under the law. Since 1997, the center has launched hundreds of public sector legal careers, undertaken innovative research to generate meaningful change, and supported communities, in the hopes of contributing to a more just legal system.