Janai Nelson

Janai Nelson is an American lawyer, who currently serves as the Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF). She will become the organization's 8th President and Director-Counsel in the spring of 2022.

Career[]

Education[]

Nelson earned her B.A. from New York University and her J.D. from UCLA School of Law.^[1]

LDF Lawyer (First Tenure)[]

Nelson began her civil rights career at LDF, first as an extern in 1995 while a student at UCLA School of Law, then as a recipient of the prestigious Fried Frank-LDF Fellowship in 1998 until she was hired as an Assistant Counsel by LDF's first Female President and Director-Counsel Elaine Jones. Nelson went on to lead LDF's Political Participation Group, including the entire voting rights and redistricting docket, felony disenfranchisement, and voter suppression matters.

During her initial tenure at LDF, her notable cases included Hayden v. Pataki, a challenge to New York’s felon disenfranchisement scheme in which she argued before the Second Circuit en banc and served as lead counsel. She was also on the team that represented African- and Haitian-American voters in NAACP v. Hood in a voter suppression challenge following the Bush v. Gore presidential election. She also served as counsel in a capital case before the Supreme Court of the United States, Banks v. Dretke.^[2]

Nelson left LDF after being named a Fulbright Scholar to conduct research in Ghana, West Africa.

Teaching and scholarship[]

Nelson spent nearly 10 years in academia, where she became a full professor and was the Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship ^[3] and Associate Director of Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development at St. John's University School of Law.^[4] While in the academy, Nelson was honored with the Derrick A. Bell Award from the American Association of Law Schools Section on Minority Groups and was named one of Lawyers of Color’s 50 Under 50 minority professors making an impact in legal education. Nelson taught classes on topics such as Election Law and Political Participation, Comparative Election Law, Voting Rights, Professional Responsibility, Constitutional Law.^[5] Nelson's scholarship focuses on domestic and comparative election law, race, and democratic theory, and her work has been published in numerous law journals and popular publications.

LDF Lawyer (Second Tenure)[]

Nelson returned to LDF in 2014 as its Associate Director-Counsel, after being recruited by President and Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill. Nelson is an organizational thought leader and has helped to develop and execute LDF’s strategic vision and oversee the operation of its programs. A member of the litigation and policy teams, Nelson also served as lead counsel in Veasey v. Abbott (2018), a successful federal challenge to Texas’ discriminatory voter ID law, and was the lead architect of National Urban League, et al. v. Trump (2020), which sought to declare President Trump’s Executive Order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion training in the workplace unconstitutional before it was later rescinded by President Biden.

In 2021, Nelson represented Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones in a lawsuit against the University of North Carolina Board of Regents concerning its decision to deny and delay awarding her tenure when promoting her to the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Reporting.

Nelson has also helped to steward some of LDF’s most pivotal developments in the past seven years, including guiding the design and launching one of the most far-reaching efforts to create the next generation of civil rights leaders: The Marshall-Motley Scholars Program[1](MMSP). The MMSP, named in honor of the nation’s first Black Supreme Court Justice and LDF founder Thurgood Marshall, and iconic civil rights litigator Constance Baker Motley, is a multi-year commitment to endow the South with committed, prepared civil rights lawyers trained to provide legal advocacy of unparalleled excellence. Nelson also helped launch the Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI)[2].

In addition, she has served in key leadership roles in an interim capacity, including General Counsel, Director of the Thurgood Marshall Institute, and Director of Communications.

Media Appearances[]

Nelson has appeared on numerous news outlets as a legal mind, civil rights advocate, and election law expert, including CNN, The Daily Show with John Stewart, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, All in with Chris Hayes, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, and Andrea Mitchell Reports to discuss wide-ranging issues of civil rights, racial justice, and constitutional law.

Currently, Nelson has a regular column that appears on the website Blavity, where she discusses topics such as voting rights, Black history, and democracy.

Op-Eds[]

In 2014, Nelson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that considered the challenges and opportunities for President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.^[6] Earlier that year, Nelson wrote an op-ed for Reuters on the importance of passing the Voting Rights Amendment Act.^[7]

In October 2018, Nelson contributed an op-ed for CNN discussing Brian Kemp's conflict of interest as a gubernatorial candidate while being Secretary of State.^[8] Later that same month, she penned an op-ed for Bustle warning Americans about voter intimidation.^[9]

Awards[]

Nelson received the 2013 Derrick A. Bell Award from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Minority Groups.^[10] That same year, she was also named one of Lawyers of Color's 50 Under 50 minority professors making an impact on legal education.^[11]

References[]