The Human Rights Institute 1L Advocates Program

The 1L Advocates Program (1LAP), unique to Columbia Law School, supports students interested in human rights with special programming in their first year of law school. The program includes curated seminars on human rights, mentorship, visits to human rights organizations in NYC, and a community of students and human rights advocates. The program sets students up for long-term involvement or careers in human rights.

Applications for the 2024/2025 academic year will open in June 2024. 

About the Program

1LAP, founded in 2017, is offered by the Human Rights Institute (HRI) and the student-led group Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute (formerly Rightslink).

Students selected to be fellows in the program will receive:

  • Human rights mentoring and community: Advocates receive individualized and group mentorship from practicing human rights advocates, and Columbia Law faculty, staff, graduates, and current students.
  • Specialized human rights seminars: Advocates attend monthly seminars that overview key issues in human rights, given by leading human rights advocates.
  • Human rights work and experience: Advocates have the opportunity to work on a range of advocacy work undertaken by HRI and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic, as well as the United Nations and NGOs around the world. All Advocates are required to undertake public interest work as part of the 1LAP program
  • Visits to human rights organizations in New York: Advocates have the opportunity to visit NGOs in New York City, meet with staff, and learn about human rights careers.

More than one hundred students have completed the program and gone on to do summer internships around the world at public interest and human rights organizations, the United Nations, and local and national government. Many have also participated in the Human Rights Clinic or conducted research and advocacy for one of HRI’s projects. Following law school graduation, 1LAP alumni have been awarded prestigious fellowships and many are doing human rights work for NGOs, international institutions, government, or courts.

How to Apply

Participation is by competitive application in the summer before 1L begins. Applications for the 2024/2025 academic year will open in June 2024.

FAQs

Who is eligible to apply?

All incoming first-year J.D. students with an interest in and commitment to human rights are encouraged to apply. Prior experience in human rights is not a prerequisite for admission. For late applications, please reach out to HRI directly at [email protected].

Can I apply to this Program and other Columbia programs?

Yes, you can apply to, and participate in, both the 1L Advocates Program and other initiatives, including the The Max Berger ’71 Public Interest/Public Service Fellows Program. Applications are reviewed separately and admission into one program does not impact another.

What type of programming is offered as part of 1LAP?

In addition to fall orientation, social events during the year, and a celebratory dinner in April, 1L Advocates will participate in roughly six seminars tailored to cover timely topics in the human rights field. Recent seminars, taught by leading human rights advocates, have covered issues such as human rights law, human rights strategies and tactics, critiques of human rights, career pathways, and building well-being and resilience.

What kind of human rights work can I take on during the 1L year?

1L Fellows are expected to dedicate a portion of their time during 1L to a human rights or social justice-related activity. This commitment can take myriad forms, such as being a part of a social justice-oriented student initiative, volunteering with an NGO, conducting human rights work through HRI and the Clinic, or doing a caravan. The 1L curriculum is a demanding experience, and the 1L Advocates program was designed with this reality in mind.

Contact

If you have any questions about the 1L Advocates Program, please write to us at [email protected].

 

Our Current Cohort: 

1LAP Nishu Afobunor

Nishu Afobunor

Name: Nishu Afobunor

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

One factor that motivated my decision to join this program is that it offers the opportunity to pursue public interest early on in my law school journey. I believe that the seminars, focusing on key human rights issues, will help me to better understand the discourse of human rights and identify ways to counter prevalent issues across the globe. Lastly, I think being placed in the 1L Advocates Program will allow me to explore diverse perspectives in tackling human rights challenges, inspiring me to reflect upon my own ambitions within social justice.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

One human rights issue I am passionate about is uplifting civil and political rights. Before Columbia, I was part of the Fair Fight Voter Education Committee at Emory University. As part of this organization, I worked to sensitize Emory faculty and students about the importance of exercising their right to vote, including in the senate and gubernatorial elections. Subsequently, as a member of Emory Students for Students, I sought to tackle a number of challenges faced by minority students and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, including supporting a successful campaign demanding a minimum wage increase for federal work-study jobs across campus.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

After graduating from CLS, I plan to delve into public interest work, with a specific emphasis on providing legal counsel for refugees and immigrants. In the future, I hope to work as a legal advocate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I also hope to fight for more policy-based actions and judicial activism in the courts, with the primary aim of tackling human rights abuses. Through this work I hope to help reframe how we examine many areas of human rights, such as gender-based violence and FGM, fighting for civil rights in the courts, and advocating for neglected minority groups.

1LAP Abigail Shaska Carbajal

Abigail Shaska Carbajal

Name: Abigail Shaska Carbajal

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

I grew up listening to my family discuss the violence they witnessed committed by the Maoist terrorist group, Sendero Luminoso, and the Peruvian Government. They explained how Peru’s legal systems failed to bring justice to the Ashaninka, Quechua, and Aymara communities which were disproportionately affected. While there were national conversations about accountability and reparations, none were formalized. Learning about these injustices instilled in me a conviction that legal professionals have the responsibility to use their training to address the flaws within our justice systems. As the first in my family to attend law school, I recognize the need for support as I begin this new phase of my academic journey.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

My experiences at Human Rights Watch, Brown University, the Center on Gender Justice and Opportunity, the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, and the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice allowed me to realize my passion for human rights work in Latin America. More specifically, I am drawn to work on state-sponsored violence and women’s rights. From a young age, I was exposed to stories of state-sponsored violence in Peru such as forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings through my family. This profoundly shaped my academic interests. As I was exposed to conversations about machismo and gender inequality from an early age, I am also am passionate about women’s rights. 

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

Upon graduating from Columbia, I aspire to work in seeking justice in cases of human rights abuses in the Americas. In particular, I aim to advance women’s rights and combat state-sponsored violence through conducting fact-finding, meeting with victims, and carrying out investigations. I hope to one day work with Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Center for Justice and International Law.

Theodosia Catsiapis

Theodosia Catsiapis

Name: Theodosia Catsiapis

Home Country: Switzerland

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

Entering Columbia Law already certain about dedicating the direction of my studies to human rights law, I see the 1L Advocates Program as the ideal path to doing so. This program provides a multifaceted network of educational and career support that will ensure I am able to enter the international human rights sphere with developed and specified interests and skills. Moreover, I cherish educational experiences led by students and am excited to find peers who share similar motivations with me.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am passionate about international human rights law; I see its potential as a globally transformative mechanism but realize the consistent limitations it faces. My background in human rights begins with Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia and its international foundation. I began advocating, fundraising, and eventually working on its Swiss board over the course of the last seven years. I am thus especially motivated to support international movements against global systems of oppression, such as gender-based sexual violence.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

I hope to work as a defender of human rights at an international organization or an entity that has international reach. I chose to study law in the United States as an international student due to the gravity and power of U.S. legal decisions on the international scale. I am excited by the prospect of discovering through my legal education at Columbia new ways to support international human rights. I believe creativity will be required to propel the field of international human rights forward and execute the radical global changes I see as necessary. I would hope that after graduating from Columbia I have the chance to be part of these creative and radical transformations.

1LAP Melody Naa Densua Dodoo

Melody Naa Densua Dodoo

Name: Melody Naa Densua Dodoo

Home Country: Accra, Ghana; Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

When beginning CLS, I was looking for programs that would provide the dual opportunity to work in a field of law I was passionate about and provide a community of like-minded law students dedicated to human rights advocacy. International law has become even more critical over the years due to increasing globalization and therefore increasing global interaction. The HRI’s 1LAP program offers several professional and personal opportunities to engage in a fascinating field of law with students that will eventually become colleagues in the international legal space.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am particularly interested in legal pluralism and how different legal systems disenfranchise women outside of the western world. I am also interested in studying how these different legal systems may be leveraged to empower women outside the west. Prior to Columbia I focused my thesis research on women and sexual minorities in post-colonial Africa. I also wrote a brief independent study project on the socio-political empowerment of Afro-Ecuadorian populations. Finally, while spending a year in China, I conducted research on how international law has interacted with Chinese law in ensuring the rights of Chinese women.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

After Columbia, I hope to work in international human rights law or policy with global organizations such as the UN, particularly on issues that pertain to women and sexual minorities. I hope to be able to work in an international capacity and create policy primarily keeping in mind the populations whom the law most affects.

JGH in Spring

Emily Dinan

Name: Emily Dinan 

Home Country: USA

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

I worked for a human rights organization prior to enrolling in law school, primarily in project organization and donor relations. I’ve always been interested in the legal side of human rights work, but I’m still deciding how I’d like to contribute to this field. I decided to apply to 1LAP to learn more about different pathways in human rights law.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I worked for a juvenile justice project in the Middle East prior to law school, and I would like to continue that kind of work closer to home. My thesis work as an undergraduate and master’s student focused on the racial profiling of immigrants by law enforcement, and that’s an issue I’d like to continue to explore.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

I hope to spend some time providing direct services to indigent communities, and I’m especially interested in contributing to a juvenile justice program.

1LAP Kara ElGarhy

Kara ElGarhy

Name: Kara ElGarhy

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

Human rights law is a niche field whose practitioners follow non-traditional career paths when compared to most law school graduates. I knew that I would need guidance to help me navigate this route. The 1L Advocates Program represents a critical opportunity to learn among a community of people with similar interests, to access spaces to work on the issues I care about while still in school, and to develop my skill set and network.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am passionate about rights-based approaches to international development, international conflict resolution and diplomacy, and international law enforcement. I started my professional career in Egypt, first at the American University in Cairo and later at Ashoka Arab World, an NGO focused on social entrepreneurship. Most recently, I spent a year at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in the Post-Conviction Relief Act Unit, where I supported the implementation of open file review and police misconduct disclosure policies.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

My goal is to enter federal public service. I see myself as an Attorney-Advisor for the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where I want to defend humanitarian law and norms, guide responsible development and foreign policy, and support international criminal prosecution and law enforcement.

Bitania Endalkachew

Bitania Endalkachew

Name: Bitania Endalkachew

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

In the future, I hope to use the law in new ways to bring about change and the 1L Advocates Program can help me achieve that. The ability to hear from cutting-edge, creative lawyers and professionals who are actively using the law to inspire change is exactly what I was looking for. It seemed obvious to me that I should try to put myself in the same spaces as those who are doing what I hope to do and this program's access to mentorship from incredible legal professionals and connection with phenomenal nonprofit organizations was unmatched.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I would like to learn more about human rights as a field, but at the moment I am interested in technology/privacy rights and women’s rights in an international context. I work at the National Women’s Law Center for the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund (TULDF) where we work to connect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace to attorneys. I have also worked at Tahirih Justice Center on Afghan asylum issues, where I was in charge of the smooth operation of our program from the Helpline to supporting asylum applications.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

When I graduate, I hope to be working internationally on topics such as technology/privacy rights, relationships between countries, or women’s rights. International law and human rights law has become my main interest within the law, so I would hope to be contributing to a project or group that aligns with that. Moreover, I would like to continue exploring how the law intersects dynamically in the structure of a government with regard to culture and religion.

1LAP Mahak Kumari

Mahak Kumari

Name: Mahak Kumari

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

Arriving at Columbia Law School, I was excited to continue working in international human rights, and I knew 1LAP would allow me to build upon my experiences through its extensive opportunities both on and off campus in New York City. Additionally, as a researcher, I found that HRI’s methodology of combining fact finding and research with strategic advocacy to create systemic shifts resonated with my own view of progress. Most importantly, joining the legal field from a nontraditional background, I knew 1LAP would allow me to learn and practice the law alongside like-minded individuals who are equally committed to building a more just and sustainable world.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am especially interested in addressing criminal justice and immigration policy issues. Through the Microsoft Pro Bono Program, I recently supported legal aid efforts to help justice-impacted communities vacate their criminal records and supported LGBTQ asylum applications and DACA documentation. Throughout law school and my career, I hope to not only continue to act as a legal representative for immigrant communities but also promote new policies that protect and meet their needs and support their transition rather than criminalize their existence.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

With my professional background in humanitarian research, I am well placed to identify global human rights challenges and design solutions. I am now bringing these skills to human rights advocacy in order to actively pursue those changes. After graduating from Columbia, I hope to promote equality and justice both domestically and internationally, specifically at the intersection of immigration, refugee rights, and criminal justice as well as address rights violations in prisons and in criminal trials both in the U.S. and globally.

1LAP Kenzo Okazaki

Kenzo Okazaki

Name: Kenzo Okazaki

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

My experiences learning and teaching about Japanese-American Internment have informed my interest in human rights law and its potential capacity to address contemporary racial discrimination and exclusion. I was excited by this program because of the opportunity it offers to learn from the disciplinary backgrounds of fellow participants. I hope that it will allow us to explore how our various fields of advocacy intersect and can contribute to one another.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am particularly interested in the proliferation of agreements that provide for the interdiction of asylum seekers before they reach their destinations. I have previously researched the nature of economic cooperation agreements which aim to contain migration to European nations at the University of Oxford. I also founded and continue to lead a project that brings students from Japan and across the United States to sites of Japanese-American Internment camps to assist organizations such as the National Park Service in translating primary documents.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

I hope to pursue a career in International Public Law but am undecided on a specific field.

1LAP Emmanuel Uyi Osayande

Emmanuel Uyi Osayande

Name: Emmanuel Uyi Osayande

Home Country: Nigeria 

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

I hope to explore and leverage the core pillars of the 1L Advocates Program (1LAP), including community, mentorship, and academic and professional development, to advance of my interests and career goals in law and litigation. The 1LAP community will undoubtably serve as a space to develop these interests further, while also benefitting from the support of peers and mentors. I further hope to learn from faculty, alumni, and legal professionals connected to the program, through their wealth of knowledge and experience and connect with like-minded 1LAP colleagues who are similarly passionate about social impact lawyering. 

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

The issues I am interested in are primarily related to the intersection of international human rights, civil rights, business and human rights, and governance. My prior experiences have shaped these interests in meaningful ways. Growing up in Nigeria, I learnt about how state and civil society actors addressed human rights issues and the role of the law in this engagement. Such life experiences reflected the possibility of making an impact through nonprofit work. In 2014, I founded WOKE- an organization that empowers underserved youth through legal advocacy, digital mentorship, and capacity-building outreach. Through this work, we were able to recruite lawyers to help petition the federal government of Nigeria to provide remote learning resources to support public school students whose education had been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

My life experiences significantly shape my post-graduation plans, especially regarding how I perceive the role and potential of the legal profession in social justice and human rights work. I believe the law is an avenue for change especially through research, advocacy, and accountability. As such, I hope to put my legal education to use in these aspects by supporting those in need, stimulating progress in the profession, and adding value to society. I therefore aspire to a career as a lawyer and legal scholar. Also, as a current Ph.D. candidate in African history at Harvard University, I hope the legal training I receive at Columbia will help to advance my current research that focuses on the history of human rights, law, and governance in the post-war era.

1LAP Safia Southey

Safia Southey

Name: Safia Southey

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

Having long been passionate about human rights work, the 1L Advocates Program stood out to me as the perfect avenue to amplify my dedication to this cause. Through its multifaceted approach, the 1LAP promised an immersive exploration of intricate subjects, making it an optimal learning environment for me. Beyond the prospect of acquiring critical thinking and leadership skills from interactions with public interest experts, my primary impetus for joining lies in the sense of community that the program fosters. The opportunity to meet and engage with like-minded people within the school promises an immense sense of belonging and relief. I am hugely excited at the chance to discuss the issues I am interested in with other similarly passionate students through specialized seminars, mentorship, and hands-on human rights work experience.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am a passionate human rights activist, learner, and world explorer. After high school, I moved to Jordan to work for the UN Relief and Works Agency in support of human rights policies for refugees from across the Middle East. There, I saw how entire communities lacked basic resources for survival and were deprived of the redress articulated by the General Assembly. Following this experience, I dedicated my academic and professional career to pursuing human rights, international law, and transitional justice. I am specifically interested in how to support victims of human rights abuses following situations of conflict, alternative methods of justice, and international law enforcement mechanisms. I have been fortunate to work in a number of human rights research and advocacy roles, including with the World Bank, the UN Refugee Agency, the US State Department, the International Public Law and Public Group, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

After graduating from Columbia Law School, I hope to work with States around the world to develop just and inclusive domestic law and support community-led transitional justice mechanisms following situations of crisis. I hope to help develop contemporary transitional justice efforts–which have been inherently top-down, government-focused legal mechanisms, through the use of Participatory Action Research, a bottom-up process that leverages local knowledge to find community-driven solutions. Specially, I am interested in working with groups such as the International Center on Transitional Justice and the International Law and Policy Group to hold federal, state, and local governments accountable to presiding legal infrastructure and advocate for these parties to take an active role in administering redress.

Jacob Turner

Jacob Turner

Name: Jacob Turner

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

I was mainly motivated to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School by the community and resources that it provides. As someone who has only engaged with public interest work from a non-law related position, I am eager to take advantage of the mentoring from practicing human right advocates. Additionally, the sense of community amongst advocates that the program provides will prove to be invaluable as I get to work alongside and learn from like-minded peers.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

Although I intend to explore a myriad of human rights issues during my time as a 1L Advocate, equitable access to a quality education is at the forefront of my human rights interests. Before coming to Columbia, I was a Teach for America Corps member placed in Philadelphia 8th grade Special Ed math and English classrooms. During this time, I also earned my Master’s degree at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. After completing my Master’s program and Teach for America, I taught for a third year as a high school music teacher.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

After I graduate from Columbia, I plan to serve the public interest in the most impactful way that I can. With a strong background in education, pursuing educational equity by means of public policy or public interest organizations is something that greatly interests me. At the same time however, I plan to use programs such as the 1L Advocates Program in order to explore other ways that I can serve the public interest in impactful ways.

1LAP Dimitri A. Vallejo

Dimitri A. Vallejo

Name: Dimitri A. Vallejo

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocates Program at Columbia Law School?

I am excited to meet like-minded peers and engage with passionate faculty on matters to amplify the voices of those in need. I am determined to address systemic issues by advocating for equitable healthcare, data privacy, and cybersecurity. As an individual who has battled cancer while experiencing the dire consequences of limited access to affordable healthcare, I am driven to fight for human rights by ensuring that no one is denied adequate treatment based on their socioeconomic status. The 1L Advocates Program’s focus on human rights aligns perfectly with my commitment to rectifying the injustices I have personally encountered.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

At the age of 19, I became the youngest trainee to secure a mediation certification at the New York Peace Institute in 2017. Over the next three years, I took to platforms such as Craigslist, Reddit, and Facebook, assisting dozens of clients—neighbors in an East-Harlem complex, dog walkers in Rosendale, and store owners in Crown Heights—all bound by a common aspiration to constructively resolve their conflicts. I further supported nonprofit organizations such as the New York Legal Assistance Group and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, where I contributed to providing free legal services to low-income individuals and to this day, I volunteer with the Valerie Fund, an organization aiding children with blood disorders.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

I firmly believe that our society possesses the capacity to transcend a status quo that systematically denies human rights based on demographics. We have the power to establish justice. It is this pursuit that propels me towards a career as a public interest attorney, driven by the desire to promote impartial humanitarianism and eradicate needless suffering within the healthcare industry. I hope to pair my expertise in data privacy and cybersecurity with my passion for improving healthcare accessibility and accountability through engaging with key decision-makers in the field.

Current Student Leadership:

1LAP Skylar Gleason

Skylar Gleason

Name: Skylar Gleason

Home Country: United States of America

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocate Program Student Leadership cohort at Columbia Law School?

I decided to join the 1LAP student leadership cohort because 1LAP serves as such an incredible door to the CLS human rights community. The first-year curriculum is quite intensive and lacks in-depth engagement with human rights topics even when such topics appear in the content. Therefore, it was phenomenal to meet with so much of the human rights faculty, form relationships with like-minded peers, and be exposed to the wide range of human rights opportunities at Columbia. Additionally, the pro bono component helped me feel more connected to the reasons I had decided to attend law school and kept me excited about human rights work.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am primarily interested in transitional justice and atrocity accountability, as well as the intersection of climate change and human rights. However, I enjoy learning about all human rights issues and am trying to develop a broad base of knowledge while at CLS. Prior to coming to law school, I worked in human rights and social justice in a variety of capacities. During college, I interned with a public defense office, an interfaith social justice organization, and a public interest firm focused on international human rights. After graduation, I returned to the firm—Perseus Strategies—for a two-year fellowship. There, I blended government, media, and legal advocacy to advance a wide array of human rights projects, including political prisoner cases, investigative reports on atrocity crimes, and international parental child abduction cases. I then worked at Scholars at Risk, where I monitored and documented attacks on academic freedom.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

Following graduation, I hope to stay in the field of international human rights law. I am specifically interested in working on the legal responses to atrocity crimes and shaping how those legal responses fit into broader transitional justice efforts. However, I am open to engaging in many areas of human rights and have enjoyed all the work I have done so far.

1LAP Daria Mateescu

Daria Mateescu

Name: Daria Mateescu          

Home Country: U.S. / Romania

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocate Program Student Leadership cohort at Columbia Law School?

I came to law school committed to a career in human rights law and seeking a community of like-minded peers. I also had a critical lens towards human rights as a political weapon, particularly as it has been used to defend war and U.S. interventionism. Being part of the cohort, I hope to collaboratively shift our theoretical understanding of human rights and also our imagination for what careers in the field might look like.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

Currently, I am most interested in the labor issues affecting workers in Eastern Europe, as well as the economic exploitation of Romanian workers when they migrate to Western nations.  Before coming to Columbia, I worked as a second-grade teaching assistant and a home care worker.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

I hope to eventually return to Eastern Europe and investigate the human rights and environmental abuses perpetrated by Western corporations and enabled by corrupt local politicians.

1LAP Sofia Calvo Castillo

Sofia Calvo Castillo

Name: Sofia Calvo Castillo

Home Country: Costa Rica

What motivated your decision to join the 1L Advocate Program Student Leadership cohort at Columbia Law School?

I knew the 1L course was going to be heavily doctrinal in areas of law that were important, but not what I planned to focus on for my career. I wanted to have a space from the beginning in which I could take a break from the workload and learn about issues that I felt passionate about. I was excited about the pro-bono work, and wanted to learn from student leaders’ experiences. Finding community was important to me too, and I knew that the 1LAP cohort would be a place to find like-minded people.

What human rights issues do you care about? What work have you done before coming to Columbia?

I am interested in refugee/immigration law, humanitarian law, armed conflict, and transitional justice, among many other things. Before coming to CLS, I was an intern at Human Rights First in the refugee representation department. I helped conduct screenings and intakes for asylum seekers. I continue to interpret client meetings occasionally. Later, I worked as a humanitarian immigration paralegal at a NJ law firm, focusing primarily on deportation defense. I worked on asylum, U-visas, and special immigrant juvenile petitions, along with some family petition cases.

What do you hope to do when you graduate from Columbia?

There are so many things that I could see myself doing that it is hard to choose. I hope to be able to work with an organization that is flexible and allows me to work on a wide range of projects. While there are plenty of human rights issues affecting communities in the United States, I am also interested in working internationally. Eventually, I would love to be able to work for the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, which is also located in my home town in Costa Rica.