Lawyering for Social Justice: Zainab Akbar (’09)

The Lawyering for Social Justice series gives students the opportunity to engage with human rights and social justice practitioners to learn about their work and diverse career paths in the field.

Zainab Akbar (’09) works as a Supervising Attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services in their Family Defense Practice. Prior to joining Brooklyn Defender Services in 2011, Zainab was a legal fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan where she worked on issues involving the First and Fourth Amendments. Prior to attending law school, Zainab served as a legislative assistant with the ACLU, working on various social justice projects. She also worked as a program assistant at DC Vote, in an effort to secure full voting rights in Congress for the residents of Washington DC. In addition to her law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School, Zainab earned her Bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins, and she holds a master’s degree in Political Theory from the London School of Economics.

While at the University of Minnesota Law School, Zainab served as an Outside Articles Editor for Law and Inequality, founded the Muslim Law Student Association, and received the Mondale Hall Engagement Award and the Law Public Service Program Award. Throughout her time at law school, Zainab interned with the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project, the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, and the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) provides legal assistance to people who are too poor to afford an attorney. BDS provides assistance in a variety of practice areas, such as criminal defense, family defense, immigration, civil justice, as well as other more specialized areas.

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