From left: Ashley Harris ’20, David Giannaula ’21, Ghada Ghannam ’21, and Noorulanne Jan ’21.
Three members of the Class of 2021, along with a 2020 Texas Law alumna, have received national postgraduate fellowships to work for the public good.
“It’s a prestigious honor for our Texas Law graduates starting their public interest legal careers to receive these fellowships,” said Mary Murphy, public interest career counselor with the Career Services Office. “These national postgraduate fellowships were made even more competitive this year during a worldwide pandemic. The law school is proud to have our students recognized for their impressive work and commitment to serving the public good.”
Ashley Alcantara Harris ’20 has been named an Equal Justice Works Fellow and will work at the ACLU of Texas in Houston to protect the voting rights of Texans affected by the criminal justice system by expanding voting access to people incarcerated pretrial, people formerly incarcerated, and low-income communities. At Texas Law, she was a member of the Texas Law Review, Articles Editor for the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, and a Teaching Quizmaster. She received the Dean’s Achievement Award for Outstanding Student in Torts and the 2018 G. Rollie White Trust Summer Fellowship. She has previously worked with the Civil Rights Clinic at Texas Law, Texas Civil Rights Project, Breakthough Austin, and as an intern for U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett and Texas State Representative Eddie Rodriguez. Her fellowship is sponsored by Morgan Stanley and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.
David Giannaula ’21 is a recipient of a Skadden Fellowship and will work at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. At Texas Law, he was a member of the Student Advisory Board for the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law, the Public Interest Law Association, and was a co-planner of the Getting Radical in the South (GRITS) Conference. He was also the recipient of the 2019-20 and 2020-221 Scott Ozmun Fellowship where he completed 500 pro bono hours with Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas. David has previously worked with the Immigration Clinic, the Transnational Workers Rights Clinic, the Supreme Court Clinic, and various pro bono projects at Texas Law. He spent his first summer at the Community Justice Project and his second summer at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Prior to law school he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic and a teacher with Teach for America in Miami.
Ghada Ghannam ’21 is a recipient of an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellowship to work with Catholic Migration Services in their Removal Defense Program. She aims to leverage her skillsets in legislative lawyering, immigration, civil rights, and social justice lawyering to uplift those she serves. Ghada received her J.D from Texas Law with Pro Bono Honors and Masters in Global Policy Studies from the Lyndon B. Johnson School at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also a two-time recipient of the Pro Bono Beacon Award. While at Texas Law, she was staff editor of The Journal of Law and Technology at Texas and Texas Journal on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, president of the Muslim Legal Society, and worked in the Children’s Rights and Legislative Lawyering Clinics. She has interned for the Supreme Court of Texas and clerked for the Texas Civil Rights Project, Open Society Justice Initiative, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, and RAICES.
Noorulanne Jan ’21 has received a postgraduate fellowship with EarthJustice and will work in their Chicago office on issues specific to the Midwest that include preserving tribal interests in the face of oil pipeline expansion, working on coal plant closure, and helping to stop chronic floods and sewage backups. At Texas Law, she served as a Mithoff Pro Bono Scholar with Street Law, staff editor of the Texas Environmental Law Journal, president of the Texas Law Muslim Legal Society, and Human Rights Scholar with the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice. She participated in the Capital Punishment Clinic, was a research assistant for Professor Kelly Haragan of the Environmental Law Clinic and was an intern with several organizations in law school such as Lone Star Legal Aid, Texas Appleseed, Texas AFL-CIO, and Bayou City Waterkeeper in Houston.