Fabulosity, Rankings

30 Under 30: The Top Young Lawyers And Policymakers (2017)

Perhaps you know one of these rising stars of the legal profession?

By  
on
Rising stars of the legal profession.

Rising stars of the legal profession.

It seems that the folks at Forbes heard and heeded my complaint. Commenting on the magazine’s 2016 list of 30 Under 30 for Law and Policy, I noted that just eight of the 30 were lawyers. The 2017 list, released earlier this week, features 11 law school graduates by my count, plus three more honorees who work in the legal space. [1]

Warm congratulations to these rising stars of the legal profession (in alphabetical order; click on each person’s name to access the Forbes write-up):

  • Adina Appelbaum. A Georgetown Law grad, Applebaum launched the Crim-Imm Pro Bono Project, to address the disproportionate immigration consequences of state criminal convictions
  • Elizabeth Clark-Polner. Although Clark-Polner doesn’t have a law degree — she instead has an undergraduate degree from Yale in cognitive science, and a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva — that hasn’t stopped her from landing a prestigious post as an Associate Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. Her work focuses on implicit bias, especially in the criminal justice system.
  • Greg Glod. Glod is Manager of State Initiatives & Senior Policy Analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he works on criminal-justice reform. He earned his law degree from the University of Maryland.
  • Alex Harris. A graduate of Harvard Law and former Harvard Law Review editor, Harris is currently clerking for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. What makes him stand out from the other 30 or so SCOTUS clerks? Well, how many have co-authored bestselling books with more than 500,000 copies sold in the United States? (In case you’re wondering, those would be Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations and Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are (affiliate links), co-authored with his twin brother Brett.)
  • Joshua House. Adding some ideological diversity to the ranks, this GW Law grad is a lawyer at the libertarian Institute for Justice (IJ), where he works on fighting abusive municipal code enforcement and fines that disproportionately affect poor people.
  • Elizabeth Kelly. A Yale Law grad and former White House staffer, where she took the lead on retirement-related issues, Kelly now serves as Director of Policy at United Income.
  • Sonya Passi. During her 2L year at Berkeley Law, Passi launched the Family Violence Appellate Project (“FVAP”), which offers free appellate legal services to survivors of domestic violence. She then went on to found FreeFrom, a national organization devoted to removing the economic barriers to domestic violence justice, where she now works.
  • Andrew Rausa. A Brooklyn Law grad and former head of a clinic providing pro-bono legal services to start-ups, Rausa now works on privacy issues at Facebook. What’s not to “like”?
  • Jordan Roberts. The first Biglaw attorney on the list, this Harvard Law grad works on big-ticket technology M&A deals at Fenwick & West, such as the WhatsApp sale, Facebook purchase’s of Oculus, and investment rounds for Uber.
  • ROSS Intelligence. We’ve mentioned this innovative company repeatedly in our pages, but in case you missed it, ROSS is, per Forbes, “a legal research engine that uses artificial intelligence to automate legal processes making them more efficient and less expensive.” Of the three co-founders — Andrew M.J. Arruda, Jimoh Ovbiagele, and Pargles Dall-Oglio — Arruda has a law degree (from the University of Saskatchewan).
  • Xiyin Tang. The second (and only other) Biglaw associate on the list, Tang practices IP law at Mayer Brown, where she focuses on copyright litigation, particularly as it relates to digital music. Her clients include such giants as Google, Spotify, and Amazon, and she teaches an IP seminar at her alma mater, Yale Law School.
  • Ryan Walsh. A former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia (and also to my former boss), Walsh serves as Chief Deputy Solicitor General of the state of Wisconsin. he graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review.

Congratulations to these accomplished legal minds and to all 30 honorees (picked by a distinguished panel featuring Arthur C. Brooks of AEI, Professor Bill Eskridge of Yale Law School, Nate Levin of OpenGov, and Anne-Marie Slaughter of New America). You can check out the complete “30 Under 30” list over at Forbes.

UPDATE (1/6/2017, 11:55 a.m.): Other lawyers appear on other lists at Forbes. Congrats to Sarah Jeong, Harvard Law grad turned noted journalist covering law and tech, and Adam Marshall, GW Law grad turned Knight Foundation Litigation Attorney at The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Jeong and Marshall appear on the “30 Under 30 – Media” list. As we know well here at Above the Law, a law degree comes in handy when working in media and journalism.

Any other lawyers I’ve missed? Let me know by email (subject line: “Forbes 30 Under 30”).

Sponsored

[1] Props to Forbes for revising the bio format to include each individual’s educational background, which makes it much easier to identify the lawyers. Just one little glitch: missing school info when multiple individuals are featured on the same slide.

30 Under 30: Law & Policy (2017) [Forbes]

Earlier: 30 Under 30: The Top Young Lawyers And Policymakers (2016)
30 Under 30: The Top Young Lawyers And Policymakers (2015)
30 Under 30: The Top Young Lawyers And Policymakers (2014)

DBL square headshotDavid Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.

Sponsored

Topics

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,