Alumni Spotlight Series: Recent Episodes
Minnie Che
Welcome to the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau's podcast series featuring alumni speaking about their diverse career paths, experience at HLAB, and advice for current students.
Michele Hall is an Assistant Public Defender at Office of the Public Defender Maryland. I spoke with Michele about working as a juvenile public defender, which combines criminal work with adolescence development and education policy. She talks about working to remove police from school and the criminalization of children involving racism and classism, highlighting the intersection of defunding the police with refunding education.
Pamela Yaacoub is a Judicial Law Clerk at U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. During our interview, Pam spoke candidly about the clerkship application process with average grades (mostly Ps) and gives her tips, dealing with ADHD and mental health in the legal profession (including imposter syndrome), and the difficulty of choosing between big law & public interest when your family is low-income.
Tim Visser is a trial attorney working in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. During his time at HLAB, Tim was elected President and speaks about his experience leading the organization. Tim also discusses his day to day tasks of investigating and prosecuting police officers and hate crimes, the importance of ethical lawyering especially under this administration, and the lasting impact that HLAB has had on him - including leading him to meet his future wife.
Michael Luskin cofounded Luskin, Stern & Eisler LLP in 1989 with a commitment to providing financial institutions with a high quality alternative to large firm representation in restructurings, bankruptcy matters, creditors’ rights litigation and financing transactions. In my interview with him, Michael speaks about a memorable case at HLAB and its unexpected ending, how he dealt with the emotional burden of legal aid work (and perhaps how not to), and questions that graduates should be asking themselves every few years as they begin to form their career paths.
Annie Lee is a Civil Rights Attorney in the Office for Civil rights of the U.S. Department of Education. She investigates complaints of discrimination against students on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, and disability. Annie talks about the differences between doing educational equity work in the nonprofit and government sectors and offers advice on finding and sustaining a supportive workplace.
This is the first episode of HLAB's new podcast, Alumni Spotlight Series! The goal of this podcast is to engage with our amazing alumni and learn about their diverse careers. I hope you enjoy it and please reach out if you have any suggestions or comments! Our first guest is Devika Kornbacher, who is a law firm partner at Vinson & Elkins working in Technology. She speaks about her career path to law, how her identity as a Black woman has affected her work, and advice for current HLAB students to "go all in."