Vernetta Alston has completed her second year at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill. She participates in the UNC Pro Bono Program, working with a local firm and with North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services. She is also a member of the Black Law Student Association’s Pro Bono Committee, and a mentor in the University’s Law for US program, which helps undergraduate minority students learn about and apply to law schools. Vernetta earned her undergrad degree at North Carolina State University, majoring in Political Science, and she was a Rugby Collegiate All-American at NCSU. Her work experience includes internships with the Mecklenburg County Public Defender in North Carolina and the Charlotte Sting of the Women’s NBA, and a position as a regulatory affairs assistant in the agriculture department of chemical company, BASF. She is working with Bill Grimm.
Erica Franklin has finished her first year at Boalt Hall Law School at UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, of the Boalt Hall Women’s Association, and has volunteered at Community Legal Outreach in Oakland,. Erica earned her undergraduate degree in Political Science from Yale. During that time she was National Research & Education Coordinator for the Campaign for Child Survival, a leader in Yale Outdoors, and a youth mentored. Also while at Yale, she worked as a Student Assistant to the South Central Regional Council of Governments, which brings together local governments to coordinate land use and transportation planning, and spent parts of a summer in Sweden as a visiting researcher at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, and then in Seattle interning at the Seattle Housing Authority. The summer before, Erica interned in the office of US Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). After graduation from Yale, she spent two years at the New York City Department of Correction as an Urban Fellow, and Special Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner responsible for programming, social services, and reentry initiatives in the New York City jails. She has bicycled across the country for Habitat for Humanity. She is working with Rebecca Gudeman.
Ashley Moore is a first year at Harvard Law School, where she is a member of the Journal of Law and Gender, a section representative in the school’s Office of Public Interest Advising, and a member of the Black Law Students Association’s Community Service Committee. Ashley earned her undergraduate degree in Government & Politics and Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at university, she also lived and studied abroad in Lesotho, South Africa, and Argentina, and taught a children’s group at a local domestic violence shelter. During her undergrad summers she clerked at the Justice Department in Washington, and at a law firm in College Park. Before entering law school, she interned at Morgan Lewis & Bockius in New York. Ashley’s interests include Jazz Dance, Aerobic Exercise, Musical Theatre, Child Advocacy, and Mentoring. She is working with Bryn Martyna on NCYL’s Clark K. v. Willden litigation, conducting in-depth legal research and analysis that will inform case strategy.
Dalisai Nisperos is a first year at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she has been involved in the Council of Student Representatives Diversity Committee, and the Reproductive Rights Clinic Anti-Discrimination Committee. She is also a member of the Latin American, Asian Pacific American, and Black Law Student Associations. Dalisai has an undergraduate degree in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley, and spent a year at the National Autonomous University of Mexico as part of her undergraduate studies. While at UC Berkeley she worked as a refugee rights advocate at East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, assisting clients of various nationalities in residency and asylum cases. Between university and law school Dalisai served as a Judicial Administration Fellow at the Superior Court in Stanislaus County, and for three years as a community organizer at Youth United for Community Action in East Palo Alto. She has a yellow belt in the Brazilian martial art Capoeira. She is working with Leecia Welch.
Natalie Saba is a second year at Stanford Law School. There she is a member of the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, on the executive board of the American Constitution Society, and is an intake volunteer for the Housing Pro Bono Program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. She has also participated in the Stanford Criminal Defense Clinic. She earned her BA in history from Northwestern where she wrote a prize-winning honors thesis on the development of the Southern labor movement and its impact on civil rights. She also studied abroad for a summer in Prague. After her first year at Stanford Law, Natalie interned at the Gender, Health, and Justice Research Unit in Cape Town, South Africa contributing to policy and education material regarding HIV, and a submission to South Africa’s Parliament on limiting judicial discretion in sentencing of sexual offenders. She as also been an Americorps Paralegal in a pro bono project on children’s health issues at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, and a volunteer teacher with Travel to Teach in Thailand.
Betsy Wang is a first year at Stanford Law School, where she is a member of the school’s Domestic Violence Pro Bono Program and Women at Stanford Law. She earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Yale. While at Yale, Betsy also worked with autistic and developmentally disabled children as a teacher’s assistant at a local school, and before that interned with the Division of Youth & Family Services Court Liaison Department in Paterson, New Jersey. Her work experience between university and law school includes serving as a legal assistant at a firm in New York City, as a wish granter for the Make a Wish Foundation, and an investigator for the New York City Department of Education. More recently, Betsy served as a Pro Bono consultant to Zimele USA, a nonprofit that supports the work of Zimele South Africa, an NGO which seeks to build infrastructure and develop microeconomic solutions in South Africa’s Kwazulu Natal region. She is working with Molly Dunn.
Regina Waugh is a dual degree candidate attending Boalt Hall and working on a Masters in Public Policy at the Goldman School at UC Berkeley. At Boalt, she participates in the California Asylum Representation Clinic and is a member of the Boalt Hall Committee for Human Rights. Regina earned her BA in History and Psychology as a Cal undergrad, also spending time at the UC Washington, DC Program where she completed a research project: America after September 11, Where do human rights fit in? During her undergrad studies she worked as a legal assistant in a law office in San Francisco and, soon after September 11, 2001, as an Action Mobilization Intern at Amnesty International in Washington. After graduating from Cal, Regina worked as a Research Associate at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Palo Alto, as a Policy Consultant for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California in Oakland, and as a Graduate School Analyst at the Office of Management and the Budget in Washington. She is working with Pat Arthur on juvenile justice reform in Arkansas, conducting research into the incarceration of status offenders in secure detention, and developing strategy to end life without parole sentences for juveniles in California.
Rae Donovan is spending the summer at NCYL as a communications intern assisting NCYL Communications Director Tracy Schroth with a variety of projects. Rae is a New York State certified teacher licensed in 7th – 12th grade English and Special Education. She earned her undergrad degree, a BA in Writing and Science, from Hampshire College and has an MA in Education from Long Island University. Rae has taught high school English in post-Katrina New Orleans, and at the Secondary School for International Studies in Brooklyn. Before securing a teaching position, she organized a self esteem program based on snowboarding that involved 10 organizations and 200 students from schools, foster care homes, and at risk behavior centers. Rae has extensive international experience, having lived and worked in Costa Rica and Ghana, studied in Switzerland, volunteered in Africa, Russia, and India, and traveled in Europe, the Balkans, and Central America.
