Former NCYL Assistant to the Director Katherine Alagar graduated last May from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College with a Master’s in Public Policy and Management. She is working as a budget analyst for the New York City Office of Management and Budget (OMB), part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office. OMB is responsible for preparing the Mayor's preliminary and executive budgets and for advising the Mayor on issues affecting the City's fiscal health and the efficiency of City services and programs. Kathy is living with her sister in Manhattan. Kathy recently paid a visit to NCYL’s Oakland office. (See photo at right).

Former NCYL staff attorney Adam Culbreath is continuing his work as a program officer in charge of Soros Justice Fellowships at the Open Society Institute in New York City.  He and his wife, Eunmee, are the parents of three-year-old Mia. (See photo at right).  

Julian Darwell, an undergraduate Arthur Liman fellow at NCYL in Summer 2005, is attending NYU law school. Julian credits NCYL for serving as an "incredible springboard for my interest in child welfare law." After his NCYL fellowship, Julian returned to Yale University, where he was an undergrad, taking a class on counsel in dependency proceedings and studying child welfare topics in several psychology research courses. After graduation, Julian taught in the Bronx for a year, then worked at Children's Rights in New York City on the Oklahoma child welfare reform case, a paper on children’s right to counsel, and a study of education in juvenile justice facilities. He is in his first year of law school.

Former NCYL law clerk Erica Franklin is in her final year at UC Berkeley School of Law and has recently accepted a clerkship with Washington (state) Supreme Court Justice Barbara Madsen.
 

Demoya Gordon, a former NCYL law clerk, has an article approved for publication in the California Law Review at UC Berkeley School of Law. The article examines what feminist theory has to offer to transgender plaintiffs who bring sex discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Demoya recently passed the Bar.   

Former NCYL law clerk Whit Griffinger has begun work as a staff attorney for the newly formed East Bay Children’s Law Office.  Whit will be representing abused and neglected children in dependency court in Hayward, CA.

Francis Villaseñor Guzman, NCYL’s Assistant to the Director from 2007-09 and a first-year law student at UCLA, has received a Diversity Scholarship Award from the California Bar Foundation. The scholarship program supports incoming California law students from racial or ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented in the legal profession. The scholarships are given to students who demonstrate academic excellence and financial need, and, who, in many cases, have overcome significant obstacles to attend law school. The scholarship awards were presented to students at an Oct. 1 reception at Bingham McCutchen LLP in San Francisco.

Former NCYL law clerk Miho Murai has left Public Counsel in Los Angeles and plans to open a private practice specializing in special education.

Judge Enrique Peña, former President of the NCYL Board of Directors, died on July 31, 2009.  Judge Peña had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November 2007. Judge Peña was a juvenile court judge in El Paso, Texas, and later founded a mediation and arbitration service.  He was also a long-time donor to NCYL.

NCYL 2008 intern Jenna Pritsos is a first-year law student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Jenna writes, “As I have been preparing for law school I have been thinking quite a bit about my time at NCYL and just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated my first exposure to the law.”