Civil Justice Student Fellows

In 2022, the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession launched the Civil Justice Fellows program. Designed to engage Stanford Law School students in research, writing, and policymaking across various aspects of the civil justice system, the Fellows program reflects the core values and goals of the Rhode Center. The Fellows play a critical role in shaping the Center’s priorities and pushing our thinking forward. We are proud of their contributions to original scholarship, impactful projects, and vital discussions at Stanford Law School and beyond.

Current Fellows

Graham Ambrose

Graham Ambrose is a third-year law student at Stanford. He is an editor of the Stanford Law Review, a student in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, and a Bradley Fellow at the Constitutional Law Center. He and Garrett Wen won best overall team in the 2023-24 Kirkwood Moot Court Competition. Before law school, Graham worked as a journalist in Iowa and Kentucky. He graduated from Yale College summa cum laude with a degree in history. Graham will clerk first for the Hon. Veronica Rossman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and then for the Hon. Christopher R. Cooper, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Ari Berman

Ari Berman is a Civil Justice Fellow and a third-year law student at Stanford. She serves as a Senior Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and she is active in Stanford’s Social Security Disability Pro Bono Project. After law school, Ari will work at Gibson Dunn and then clerk for the Honorable Judge Pamela Chen in the Eastern District of New York. Before law school, Ari worked as an editor at Foreign Affairs magazine. Ari graduated from Harvard cum laude with a degree in government.

Kelsea Jeon

Kelsea Jeon is a second-year law student at Stanford. She is a member editor of the Stanford Law Review. Before law school, Kelsea received an M.Phil in Socio-Legal Research from the University of Oxford and a B.A. in History from Yale College. She has published papers about early understandings of access to justice in America in the late 18th century and about the transition in legal aid providers from nonlawyers to lawyers in the early 20th century. She also previously worked as a Court Navigator in New York City and served as a Richard Zorza Fellow at the Self-Represented Litigation Network.

Nicole Kozlak

Nicole Kozlak is a second-year law student at Stanford. She serves as Women of Stanford Law (WSL) Co-President and If/When/How Vice President. Nicole is a member of the Prisoner Legal Services and Reproductive Justice pro bono groups and is a board member of Stanford Law Association. Prior to law school, Nicole worked as a business and non-profit strategy consultant at Accenture Strategy. She graduated from Duke University with a degree in public policy in 2017.

Jess Lu

Jess Lu is a third-year law student at Stanford where she served as OutLaw Co-President, Election Law Project Co-President, and as an editor of the Stanford Law Review. Jess is a graduate of Dartmouth College and, prior to law school, worked as a Senior Associate Consultant in Bain & Company’s Boston office. After graduation, Jess is headed to Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C.

Lisa Lu

Lisa Lu is a second-year law student at Stanford where she is involved with the Housing Pro Bono Project, the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, the American Constitution Society, and the Women of Color Collective. She spent her first summer at the ACLU of Northern California. Before law school, Lisa earned a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University and worked as a Research Fellow at the Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab and as a Software Engineer at Lyft.

Alexandra Minsk

Alexandra Minsk is a JD candidate and a PhD student in political science at Stanford. Her interests include democratic theory, corporate power, and criminal law. Prior to grad school, Alex worked as a paralegal at the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College.

Aaron Schaffer-Neitz

Aaron Schaffer-Neitz is a third-year law student at Stanford. His interests include workers’ rights, environmental law, and rural access to justice. He serves on Stanford Law Review’s Article Committee and is the co-founder of the Rural Studies Reading Group. Before law school, Aaron worked at OC&C Strategy Consultants’ New York office. Aaron graduated from Columbia University in 2019 and is originally from Northumberland, Pennsylvania. After graduation, Aaron will be working as a Fellow at Altshuler Berzon Law. The following year, he will be clerking for Judge Cheryl Krause on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Molly Shapiro

Molly Shapiro is a second-year law student at Stanford. She is currently a member editor of the Stanford Law Review. She spent her 1L summer at the Center for Appellate Litigation and will be working at the Federal Defenders of New York in the Southern District during her upcoming 2L summer. Prior to law school, she worked as the Manager of Policy and Media Advocacy at Zealous, a non-profit that seeks to shed light on injustice in the criminal legal system. She was a finalist in the Stanford Law School Kirkwood Moot Court Competition, where she won the awards for Best Brief and Best Oralist.

Benjamin Welton

Ben Welton is a third-year law student at Stanford. He serves as a Senior Editor for Stanford Law Review and is an active member of Stanford’s Social Security Disability Pro Bono Project. He is passionate about low-cost legal services and the law’s relationship with technology. Before law school, Ben worked in the Bay Area for two years as a software engineer building privacy infrastructure. Originally from Littleton, Colorado, he graduated from Duke University in 2019. After law school, he will work at Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco.

Garrett Wen

Garrett Wen is a third-year law student at Stanford. He spent his 1L and 2L summers interning at the New York Legal Assistance Group, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), and the Federal Programs Branch at the U.S. Department of Justice. He is the Senior Development Editor of the Stanford Law Review and a Co-Leader of Project Clean Slate, Stanford’s record expungement pro bono organization. He is passionate about litigation transparency and expanding equal access to justice. Garrett grew up in South Dakota and graduated from Harvard College in 2018. Garrett will clerk for Judge Bradley Garcia on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2025, and for Judge Paul Engelmayer for the U.S. District Court for the SDNY in 2026.

Catherina Xu

Catherina Xu is a third-year law student at Stanford. She serves as the Executive Editor of the Stanford Law Review. Before law school, she was a Product Manager on the Responsible Machine Learning team at Google, building tools that helped evaluate the impact of algorithms on marginalized communities. Her interests include antidiscrimination law as applied to technology, access to justice, and the great outdoors. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University. After law school, Cat will be clerking for Judge Rita F. Lin on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.