Katarina van Alebeek
Katarina van Alebeek (she/her) graduated from Berkeley Law in 2026 with pro bono honors and a certificate in Public Interest & Social Justice. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with honors from Stanford University. As a law student, Katarina co-led the Drug Policy Project and was a clinical student in both the Death Penalty Clinic and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. She previously externed for her fellowship organization, Reprieve, and is grateful to be returning to the organization as a Larsen Justice Fellow. In her free time, Katarina enjoys wheel throwing ceramics, visiting her local library, and birding.
Work Area/Project: Katarina will work on litigation and legislation to limit Department of Corrections access to pharmaceutical drugs for use in executions.
Fellowship Organization: Reprieve
Rose Farley
Rose (she/her) is thrilled to have the opportunity to work on criminal legal system reform in New York City as a Larsen Fellow. Rose joined Berkeley Law in 2023 after a career as an investigator. Over the course of seven years, she worked for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, as a private investigator in Burlington, Vermont, and as Director of Investigations at Justice Catalyst Law in New York City. As an investigator, Rose conducted witness interviews, gathered records, and developed case theories in support of indigent clients in criminal proceedings and civil rights impact litigation.
Throughout her time at Berkeley Law, Rose has remained committed to public interest work. She spent her 1L summer as a Sarah Kenyon Kraw Fellow at the Civil Rights Bureau of the Office of the New York State Attorney General; externed with Phillips Black, a nonprofit law firm focused on capital post-conviction litigation; and spent her 2L summer as a Coblentz Civil Rights Fellow working on issues related to criminal law reform for the Legal Aid Society in New York City. Rose has devoted her 3L year to the Death Penalty Clinic, in which she has done extensive investigation, strategic planning, and clemency-related advocacy for a client on Alabama’s death row.
As a Larsen Fellow, Rose will work with the office of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to develop projects related to the criminal system that are ripe for major, systemic reform–including a plan to (finally) close Rikers. She couldn’t be more excited for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Work Area/Project: Criminal legal system reform; developing projects for systemic change including the closure of Rikers Island.
Host Organization: New York City Mayor’s Office
Sara Flinn
Bio: Sara is a Larsen Fellow at the National Police Accountability Project and graduated from Berkeley Law in 2025. They came to work in law by learning from those fighting fossil fuel expansion and police brutality. At Berkeley, Sara was lucky to participate in the Human Rights Clinic and the Death Penalty Clinic, while interning with the Civil Liberties Defense Center, the Center for Protest Law and Litigation, Earthjustice, and the Prison Law Office. They are passionate about advancing movements for racial and environmental justice and learning from those reimagining change within and beyond the legal system. Most recently, Sara clerked in the District of New Jersey.
While at NPAP, their work will focus on pursuing accountability for violence by federal immigration agents and contributing to litigation confronting inadequate conditions of confinement and medical care in prisons, jails, and detention facilities.
Outside of work, you can find Sara outside, being consensually punched (a.k.a. practicing Muay Thai), or chatting up the nearest dog.
Work Area/Project: Federal immigration enforcement accountability and conditions of confinement litigation (inadequate medical care and conditions in prisons, jails, and detention facilities).
Host Organization: National Police Accountability Project (NPAP)
Nick Hirschel-Burns
Nick Hirschel-Burns (he/him) is passionate about addressing the civil consequences that follow negative contact with the criminal legal system. Before law school, Nick was a paralegal in a medical-legal partnership in Philadelphia, where he worked to mitigate the harm inflicted on his clients by poverty, systemic racism, and substance use disorders. While at Berkeley Law, Nick has interned for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, Impact for Equity, and the Uptown People’s Law Center, and co-led the Tenant’s Rights Workshop pro bono project. Nick will be a Larsen Justice Fellow at Cabrini Green Legal Aid in Chicago. At CGLA, Nick will represent clients in driver’s license reinstatements to ensure their ability to go to work, see their families, and limit future harm from the economic and criminal consequences of driving without a license. He is excited for the opportunity to address the collateral consequences of criminal charges that disproportionately impact low-income people of color in Cook County.
Work Area/Project: Driver’s license reinstatement representation; collateral consequences of criminal charges; civil legal aid for low-income clients in Cook County.
Host Organization: Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA)
Chau Le
Chau Le will be a 2026–27 Larsen Justice Fellow at Beyond Legal Aid in Chicago, Illinois. Her fellowship project will focus on developing litigation to challenge the Illinois Department of Corrections’ unconstitutional restrictions on physical mail. This project will be part of a larger initiative to formalize and increase the capacity of Beyond’s budding litigation practice, which advocates for incarcerated Illinoisans on issues like unjust prison conditions.
Chau will graduate from Berkeley Law in Spring 2026 with a Public Interest and Social Justice Certificate. She is a Human Rights Center Scholar and 2024 Thelton E. Henderson Racial Justice Fellow. During her 1L summer, she interned with Legal Aid Chicago’s Housing Practice Group, where she worked on eviction defense and fair housing cases. In summer 2025, she interned at the MacArthur Justice Center’s St. Louis office, where she assisted with civil rights litigation on issues including prison conditions and government transparency.
She co-directed Berkeley Law’s 2025–26 Moot Court team, served as a former senior articles editor for the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law, and is a current member of the Death Penalty Clinic. Additionally, she has been a student researcher with the Paper Prisons Initiative since fall 2023, where much of her work is focused on understanding how public access to statistical data can be expanded to support California defendants bringing Racial Justice Act claims.
Work Area/Project: Litigation challenging IDOC restrictions on physical mail for incarcerated people; prison conditions advocacy; building organizational litigation capacity for Beyond Legal Aid’s emerging practice.
Host Organization: Beyond Legal Aid
Belén de León
Belén de León (she/her) is a 2025 graduate of Berkeley Law. As an immigrant from a mixed-status family, Belén entered law school with an unwavering commitment to leverage her legal skills in the service of disenfranchised communities like her own. Throughout her law school career, Belén spent hundreds of hours working with the International Human Rights Clinic, as well as various public interest organizations, in pursuit of immigrant justice, prison abolition, and human rights. She is now honored to spend her Larsen Fellowship working with the Criminal Law and Justice Center to tackle some of the most urgent challenges in the criminal legal system.
Work Area/Project: Criminal legal system reform
Host Organization: UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center
Stephanie Lu
Stephanie Lu (she/her) is from San Jose, CA. She earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and statistics from UC Davis in 2020 and conducted research for the New York Civil Liberty Union’s Policy Department before starting law school. While at Berkeley Law, Stephanie provided legal aid to Alameda County tenants through the school’s Tenants’ Rights Project and Centro Legal de la Raza. Stephanie also helped the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office represent individuals charged with misdemeanors and worked on direct appeals for incarcerated Californians at the Office of the State Public Defender. During her fellowship, she will work with the Santa Cruz County Public Defender’s Office to provide early representation to clients and hopefully expand the program across the county!
Work Area/Project: Early representation for public defender clients; potential expansion of the program countywide.
Host Organization: Santa Cruz County Office of the Public Defender
Hadley Rood
Hadley is originally from the Sacramento area with an undergraduate degree in history from UC Davis. She graduated from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2022, with a Public Interest and Social Justice Certificate and pro bono honors with highest distinction. During and after law school, Hadley has worked for various organizations focused on housing justice and the decriminalization of poverty, specifically the decriminalization of homelessness. Hadley was a Berkeley Law Public Interest Fellow at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she helped develop and litigate the Coalition on Homelessness v. San Francisco case challenging San Francisco’s practices during encampment sweeps. Most recently, she has worked as a staff attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid, practicing eviction defense and serving as co-chair of BayLegal’s Homelessness Task Force. Outside of lawyering, Hadley enjoys making art and music and visiting every independent bookstore she can.
Work Area/Project: Impact litigation in various issue areas, including prisoners’ rights and criminal legal reform.
Fellowship Organization: BraunHagey & Borden, LLP
Adriana Weiss
Adriana (she/her) is excited for the opportunity to work as a Larsen Justice Fellow with the Youth and Emergent Adult Resentencing (YEARS) Project at the Center for Appellate Litigation in New York City.
Adriana received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley in 2021 and J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2024 (Go Bears!). Adriana focused on public interest work supporting individuals impacted by incarceration and the criminalization of poverty. During law school, she worked with the ACLU of Northern California, East Bay Community Law Center, and Bay Area Legal Aid on issues related to homelessness, housing preservation, and criminal legal system reform.
She most recently clerked for two years with the Honorable Danya A. Dayson in the D.C. Superior Court on a felony calendar. In this role, Adriana regularly drafted orders on post-conviction motions, including compassionate release and sentence-reduction claims related to youth mitigation.
As a Larsen Justice Fellow, Adriana will support YEARS’ innovative post-conviction advocacy initiative that seeks relief for individuals serving extreme sentences for offenses committed during adolescence and early adulthood.
Work Area/Project: Post-conviction advocacy for individuals serving extreme sentences for offenses committed during adolescence and early adulthood; sentence reduction and resentencing litigation.
Host Organization: Center for Appellate Litigation – YEARS Project (New York City)
Zaid Yousef
Zaid Yousef is a law student at UC Berkeley and a graduate student at The Islamic Seminary of America. At Berkeley, Zaid has focused his studies on the fields of civil and human rights, particularly in light of the Gaza Genocide and subsequent crackdown on pro-Palestinian students. He also served as the President of the Muslim Student Association and Managing Editor of the Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Law. In the future, Zaid plans to continue his Islamic studies and to serve as a public interest lawyer with a faith-based, activism-oriented ethos.
Zaid will be working at the Muslim Legal Fund of America’s National Security Criminal Defense Center (NSCDC). The Center was created in response to the growing recognition that national security criminal cases present recurring constitutional and procedural issues that are not adequately addressed by existing criminal defense structures. Drawing on deep institutional experience litigating material support cases, sanctions prosecutions, surveillance-based charges, and cases involving classified evidence, the Center is uniquely positioned to identify patterns of overreach and to pursue strategic litigation capable of shaping constitutional doctrine in this area.
Work Area/Project: National security criminal defense; constitutional challenges in material support and surveillance-based prosecutions; civil and human rights advocacy at the intersection of faith, activism, and public interest law.
Host Organization: Muslim Legal Fund of America