Mari Calder is a 2009 graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law. She has chosen to take a year-long deferral from Hogan & Hartson LLP to work at NCYL. During law school, Mari volunteered with Community Legal Outreach’s health and public benefits clinics and was on the Berkeley Technology & Law Journal. She also clerked at the Federal Trade Commission, focusing on consumer protection and antitrust matters. Mari grew up in Princeton, NJ and received her undergraduate degree from Harvard, magna cum laude, where she majored in Government. She is fluent in Japanese and took time off from college to work as a reporter for the Tokyo Bureau of Time Magazine. While living in Tokyo, Mari also volunteered at the Japan Civil Liberties Union. After college, Mari worked concurrently at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations and the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, doing writing and research. In addition to working at NCYL, Mari is volunteering at the Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic in San Francisco, a non-profit that provides legal support to survivors of domestic violence. At NCYL, she is working on improving foster children’s access to mental health services, and juvenile justice reform. In December 2010, Mari will become an associate at the Washington, D.C. office of Hogan & Hartson.

Camille Roberts joined NCYL in November 2009 through a 14-month fellowship with Sidley Austin, LLP. While at NCYL, she is focusing on child welfare and juvenile justice issues. She is currently working on litigation to reform the foster care system in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. Camille, who just passed the bar, earned her law degree in 2009 from UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was Articles Editor for Ecology Law Quarterly. While in law school, she successfully represented an asylum candidate through the school’s California Asylum Representation Clinic. Camille is fluent in Spanish, and prior to law school spent two years living in Chile, interning at Amnesty International in Santiago. Camille earned her undergraduate degree in 2004 from the University of Colorado, with a B.A. in International Affairs.

Shira Weissman is a 2008 graduate of Northwestern University School of Law.  She is volunteering at NCYL, working with attorney Rebecca Gudeman on reproductive health care rights for foster youth.  Shira obtained her B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan and has an M.S. in education from Pace University in New York. Prior to law school, Shira spent two years as a third-grade teacher at P.S. 1 in the Bronx with Teach for America. She often served as an advocate for her students to get the special services they were entitled to.  After teaching, Shira spent a year traveling throughout Southeast Asia and India, and taught in a school for homeless children in Varanasi, India. During law school, Shira worked on juvenile delinquency and school expulsion cases at the Bluhm Legal Clinic.  She also clerked for the Cook County Public Defender’s Office and the Office of Attorney General. Following law school, she worked as a litigation associate at Baker & McKenzie in Chicago. Shira just recently moved to the Bay Area and hopes to build a career in child advocacy.