Author / Harvard Law School

by Harvard Law School

Jacqueline Bhabha

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Professor Jacqueline Bhabha is currently FXB Director of Research, Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, a Lecturer at Harvard Law School, and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.  Previously,  Bhabha directed the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago and was a practicing human rights lawyer in London and at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She cares deeply about children, women, and the poor, and “continues to push boundaries and come up with creative and innovative ways to think about addressing human rights issues around the world.” She has published extensively on issues of transnational child migration, refugee protection, and children’s rights and citizenship. She is the editor of Children Without A State, author of the forthcoming book Moving Children: Young Migrants and the Challenge of Rights, and editor of the forthcoming book Coming of Age: Reframing the Approach to Adolescent Rights. Bhabha serves on the board of the Scholars at Risk Network, the World Peace Foundation and the Journal of Refugee Studies. She is also a founder of the Alba Collective, an international women’s NGO currently working with rural women and girls in developing countries to enhance financial security and youth rights. Her work is “exciting and motivating” and represents inspiring “interdisciplinary and innovative approaches to some of the worlds most challenging problems.”

Bhabha earned her M.Sc. from Oxford University and J.D. from the College of Law in London.

*Audio clip recorded by Becky Wolozin
For a transcript of the audio file, please click here.

by Harvard Law School

Dana H. Born

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General Dana H. Born, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard, is a retired brigadier general with 30 years of service in the U.S. Air Force. Prior to coming to Harvard, she served two terms as the President-appointed Dean of the Faculty for the U.S. Air Force Academy and was the first woman to hold that position. Born also served as Assistant Director for Recruiting Research and Analysis in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Management Policy, aide to the Secretary of the Air Force, and Deputy Chief of the Personnel Issues Team in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. She commanded the 11th Mission Support Squadron at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., was an Exchange Officer with the Royal Australian Air Force, and served in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Born has organized and spoken at events that address gender equality and leadership. “Her success in dealing with various obstacles has provided valuable lessons to people of all genders and generations.” She has received a large number of awards, including an honorary doctorate from Simmons College in 2007, the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal.

Born earned a B.S. from the U.S. Air Force Academy, M.S. from Trinity University, M.A. from the University of Melbourne, and Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.

*Audio clip recorded by Maria Parra-Orlandoni and Jeremiah Schwarz
For a transcript of the audio file, please click here.

by Harvard Law School

Paulette Brown

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Paulette Brown is a member of Edwards Wildman’s Labor & Employment Practice Group, and the firm’s Chief Diversity Officer. Throughout her career expanding three decades, she has held a number of positions, including in-house counsel to several of Fortune 500 companies and Municipal Court Judge. Brown has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the top 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in the country. She is also slated to become the American Bar Association’s first woman of color to serve as President. Brown’s “commitment and sincere belief in the future generation of lawyers is moving.” She inspires those around her because “she has maintained a commitment to helping aspiring female and minority attorneys advance in the legal profession in every way that she can.”

Brown earned her B.A. from Howard University and J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law.

by Harvard Law School

Sarah Buel ‘90

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Sarah Buel has worked for more than 30 years with battered women and children. While at Harvard Law School, she was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, founded the Harvard Battered Women’s Advocacy Project, the Harvard Women in Prison Project, and the Harvard Children and Family Rights Project. She was a prosecutor for six years in Massachusetts and later was a clinical professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where she founded and co-directed their Domestic Violence Clinic, co-founded the University of Texas Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, and was special counsel for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. A survivor of domestic violence, Buel has been a tireless advocate for the victims of domestic violence and abused children and has inspired countless people through her many forms of activism. Her commitment, tenacity and ability “to turn her personal experience with domestic violence into a influential career that has positively changed so many lives is incredibly inspiring.” NBC named her one of the five most inspiring women in America.

Buel earned her B.A from Harvard University and J.D. from Harvard Law School.

by Harvard Law School

Esme Caramello ‘99

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Esme Caramello is the Deputy Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and she is a “passionate advocate for her clients and an incredibly thoughtful supervisor.” She has spent her career working tirelessly on behalf of low-income people and training the next generation of legal professionals to do the same.  After graduating from law school, she moved to San Francisco to work as a litigation associate at Baker & McKenzie. She served as a law clerk in Chicago and then spent five years as a Chesterfield Smith Community Service Fellow and litigation associate at Holland & Knight. Through the Smith Fellowship, Caramello was exposed to a wide range of public interest practice areas and styles, from federal prison reform litigation to political asylum to eviction defense to consumer rights legislation. She then joined the Housing Unit at HLS’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center, and then Suffolk Law School’s Housing and Consumer Protection Clinic, before coming to teach at the Bureau as its Deputy Director and a Clinical Instructor in 2009. She was the first employee of the National Voting Rights Institute and Board President of MassVOTE, and she is a member of the State Ballot Law Commission.

Caramello earned her Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and J.D. from Harvard Law School.

*Audio clip recorded by Annie Lee
For a transcript of the audio file, please click here.

by Harvard Law School

Wendy Davis ’93

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Senator Wendy Davis is a Democratic politician from Texas, and candidate in the 2014 Texas gubernatorial election. After law school, Davis helped grow a successful business in Fort Worth and served nine years on the Fort Worth City Council, where she was recognized as a leader on economic development issues. Later, as chair of the city’s Economic Development Committee, Davis helped create public-private partnerships and bring thousands of new jobs to the area. She was elected to the Texas Senate in 2008 and later, Davis filibustered a budget that cut over $5 billion from public schools. She also worked to pass a law that will bring justice to rape victims by addressing Texas’ backlog of tens of thousands of DNA samples collected from sexual assaults and filed the “Texas Jobs First” legislation to give preference to Texans when awarding state contracts. Furthermore, Davis protected the Veterans’ Assistance Fund from being used to fill budget gaps and fought against cuts to women’s health care. Davis is most recently known for her nationally watched eleven-hour filibuster (performed in pink running shoes) in the Texas State Senate to block Senate Bill 5, which would impose additional restrictive abortion regulations in the State.

Davis earned her Bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University and J.D. from Harvard Law School.

by Harvard Law School

Maureen Devine

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Maureen Devine joined the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau in July 2009 after practicing law for more than 25 years in the Boston area. Previously, Devine worked as Counsel in the Family Law Department of Foley & Lardner LLP and was a member of the legal departments of the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare and the Department of Revenue/Child Support Enforcement. After eight years in the public sector, Devine began working in private practice where she represented individual litigants in all aspects of family law including domestic violence restraining orders, divorce, paternity, modification and contempt actions. She has been a “wonderful mentor and role model for the Harvard students that she has worked with.”

Devine earned her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School.

*Audio clip recorded by Nila Devanath
For a transcript of the audio file, please click here.

by Harvard Law School

Unity Dow

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Judge Unity Dow is a human rights activist and writer from Botswana. She served as Botswana’s first female High Court judge, where she took part in vital decisions, including allowing the San people to return to their ancestral homelands. She has served as Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists and was awarded the French Medal of the Legion of Honor. In 2009, she started her own law firm, Dow & Associates. In February 2010, she was appointed to the Interim Independent Constitutional Dispute Resolution Court, a group charged with implementing Kenya’s new constitution. Dow has also been appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as an independent expert to assess how Israel’s West Bank settlement affects Palestinians. Furthermore, she has written five books that deal with gender, poverty, AIDS, and the interplay between Western and traditional Batswana values. Some of Dow’s human rights victories have been borne out of personal struggle. She successfully brought a case to the Supreme Court arguing that the denial of citizenship to children of a Motswana mother and a non-Motswana father violated Botswana’s Constitutional rights to liberty and the right not to be subject to degrading treatment, and constituted sex discrimination.

Dow earned her LL.B. at the University of Botswana and Swaziland, which included 2 years studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

*Audio clip recorded by Melanie Emmen
For a transcript of the audio file, please click here.

by Harvard Law School

Cindy Dyer

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Cindy Dyer is the Vice President for Human Rights at Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international nonprofit focused on women’s leadership and empowerment. Prior to joining Vital Voices in 2008, Dyer served as Director of the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women. As Director, she served as the liaison between the Department of Justice and federal, state, and international governments on violent crimes against women. Before that, she worked as a specialized domestic and sexual violence prosecutor for 13 years. She also served as a member on the Public Policy Committee of the Texas Council on Family Violence, and volunteered for many years for a battered women’s hotline.  She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her service to survivors of violence and her leadership has helped to further develop domestic violence rights in the United States.

Dyer received her Bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University and her J.D. from Baylor University Law School.

*Audio clip recorded by Becca Donaldson
For a transcript of the audio file, please click here.

by Harvard Law School

Marian Wright Edelman

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Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), has been advocating for disadvantaged Americans for her entire career. Edelman began her career in the mid-60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People’s Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children’s Defense Fund. For two years she served as the Director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in l973 began CDF. Edelman previously was Chair of the Board of Trustees of Spelman College and was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings.

Edelman earned her Bachelor’s degree from Spelman College and J.D. from Yale Law School.

*Audio clip recorded by Annie Lee; **Audio clip recorded by Becky Wolozin
For transcripts of the audio files, click here and here.