Zoraima Pelaez is a class of 2022 law student at the The University of Texas School of Law. Pelaez currently serves on the student advisory board and is the managing editor of the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights. She is chief of staff of the Texas Law chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS) and an ACS Next Generation Leader. As a 2L, she served as president of the ACS chapter, co-president of the Texas Law chapter of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, and a board member of the Public Interest Law Association.
Zoraima has volunteered for several pro bono projects, including Pro Bono in January, the Women in Immigration Detention Assistance Project, and the Parole Project. She launched and manages a reproductive rights pro bono project that assists Jane’s Due Process with legal, policy, and educational research initiatives. She has participated in the Civil Rights Clinic and the Supreme Court Clinic.
The summer after her 1L year, Zoraima worked with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project in New York City providing litigation support. The summer after her 2L year, she will work with the ACLU of Texas focusing on voting rights and reproductive rights impact litigation. Before coming to law school, she was the outreach and advocacy manager for the Texas Freedom Network, where she managed community advocacy and grassroots lobbying efforts at the Texas Legislature and State Board of Education.
Ashland Johnson is the President and Founder of the Inclusion Playbook, a sports impact project that works with sports leaders to transform communities in and through sports. Ashland is a former Board member of the American Constitution Society.
Aziz Z. Huq is the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law and Mark Claster Mamolen Teaching Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. Aziz’s scholarship concerns the interaction of constitutional design with individual rights and liberties.
As a faculty member at the University of Chicago, he has garnered the AALS Junior Scholars Paper Competition Award in Criminal Law and has been selected for the Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. Before joining the Law School, Aziz worked as Associate Counsel and then Director of the Liberty and National Security Project of the Brennan Center for Justice, litigating cases in both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. He was also a Senior Consultant Analyst for the International Crisis Group, researching constitutional design and implementation in Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. He clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court.
Aziz has also been very engaged with ACS through participating in events in DC and Chicago.
He graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and graduated from Columbia Law School, where he was awarded the John Ordronaux Prize.
Garrett Epps is Legal Affairs Editor of The Washington Monthly. Previously he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he taught courses in constitutional law, First Amendment law, and fiction and non-fiction writing for law students.
Epps has been an active contributor to ACS, since shortly after its founding. He was featured as a speaker at its National Convention and is a regular contributor to the organization’s other policy events, seminars, and discussions.
Previously, Epps was the Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollins Professor of Law at the University of Oregon. He co-founded the Richmond Mercury, served as a columnist for the Independent Weekly, and worked as an editor and reporter at the Richmond Afro-American, Washington Post, The Free Lance-Star, and The Virginia Churchman.
Epps clerked for the Honorable John D. Butzner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He earned his B.A. from Harvard College, where he was Editor of The Harvard Crimson, and his M.A. in creative writing from Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. Additionally, Epps holds a J.D. and a LL.M. in Comparative and International Law from Duke University School of Law.
Holly Fechner is a Partner at Covington & Burling LLP and a co-chair of the firm’s technology industry group. She advises clients on complex public policy matters. Nationally ranked by Chambers, Fechner received the 2019 American Lawyer Magazine "Dealmaker of the Year" award. Fechner is Executive Director of Invent Together, a campaign dedicated to understanding the gender, race, income, and other diversity gaps in invention and patenting and supporting public policies to close them. She serves on the board of directors of the American Constitution Society and has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School, the University of Maryland Law School and George Washington University. Prior to Covington, Fechner was Policy Director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Chief Labor and Pensions Counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. She graduated from Oberlin College and received her law and women’s studies graduate degrees from the University of Michigan.
