The Equal Justice Society welcomes Elizabeth “Lizzy” Wright as our new Law Clerk for the spring. Lizzy is a 2L at Syracuse University College of Law, where she is Associate Articles Editor of the Journal of Global Rights and Organizations and a Staff Writer for Impunity Watch News.
Lizzy aspires to practice criminal defense after law school and applied for the clerkship after learning about EJS’s extensive efforts related to school discipline, special education, the school-to-prison pipeline, college admissions, and inequities in the criminal justice system.
Motivated by her volunteer experience with the Prison Education Program at FCI McKean in Pennsylvania, Lizzy is authoring a law review article on incarcerated parents and how quickly their rights tend to get terminated in the court system. Last year, she volunteered as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild.
“Lizzy’s demonstrated and earnest commitment to racial and social justice make her an ideal addition to our EJS team,” says EJS Legal Director, Mona Tawatao. “She has already jumped into our work to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and will be helping us implement our 2021 case and policy priorities.”
Lizzy earned her Bachelor of Arts – Criminal Justice, Legal Studies, Pre-Law, summa cum laude, from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, where she was on the Dean’s List and also received the Harry M. Wick Pre-law Scholarship. She was also inducted into Pi Gamma Mu, the International Honor Society in Social Sciences.
Her undergraduate research paper, Meanings Associated with the Confederate Flag, was accepted at the 2019 Western Society of Criminology Annual Conference 2019 and presented and accepted at numerous other academic conferences. Her paper received an Excellence in Research Award at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Honors Day 2019.
During law school, Lizzy worked at the YWCA Victims Resource Center in Bradford, Penn., as a shelter counselor-advocate, managing safe house locations, staffing crisis hotlines, and providing other services to domestic violence and sexual assault victims.
Lizzy is an expert equestrian and a first-degree black belt in the Korean martial art of Tang Soo Do.