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What is Public Interest?
We'd love to hear from you! Whether you're interested in learning more about public service, externships at Cornell, or domestic and international public interest opportunities, our team is ready to answer your questions.
While many of our team members are currently working a hybrid schedule of remote and on-campus , we are readily accessible via the virtual contact methods below. Don't worry, our office phone numbers connect directly to our cell phones. Contact us today!
Akua Akyea | Associate Dean for Career Development | book an appointment
Dean Akyea leads a re-imagined office focused on supporting students and alumni in all practice areas. As Assistant Dean for Public Service at the Law School, she counseled students and alumni on both domestic and international public interest opportunities and on ways to incorporate pro-bono in a corporate practice. Before coming to Cornell Law School, she was Assistant dean of Career Services at the University of Iowa College of Law. Prior to that, she was director of Public Interest at Yale Law School for five years. as director of Public Interest following nine years at Columbia Law School's Social Justice Initiatives where she directed several public interest summer programs.
Dean Akyea is a graduate of the University of Iowa Law School where she was on the Journal of Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems and a member of the Legal Clinic working on asylum petitions and §1983 cases. She has presented on international public interest careers, working with public interest alumni, navigating a job search during a crisis, and supporting students' social justice goals at National Association for Law Placement and Equal Justice Works conferences. She is a co-founder of the Cornell Defender Program, a cross-campus collaboration which partners undergraduate and law students with local public defenders. Dean Akyea has also worked on issues of cross-cultural communication and diversity, is a trained mediator, and served as a counselor for at-risk high school students through the Upward Bound Project. She has traveled and lived in several countries in Europe, East and West Africa, and North America.
Michaela Azemi | Director of Pro Bono Services and Externships | book an appointment
Michaela K. Rossettie Azemi currently serves as the Director of Pro Bono Services and Externships at Cornell Law School. Formerly she was the Associate Director for Judicial Engagement and Professional Development. She previously worked as the Regional Pro Bono Coordinator for LawNY's private attorney involvement and law student internship programs.
She was a Staff Attorney for LawNY from September 2013 to August 2016, handling Family Law and Disability Advocacy cases. Michaela received her B.A. in Sociology and Women's Studies from the University of Delaware in 2009, her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University Law School in 2012 and was admitted to practice in NY in 2013.
In the summer of 2013, she volunteered as a Pro Bono Attorney for LawNY where she developed a model for LawNY's pro se divorce clinic and was honored to receive the NYSBA Empire State Counsel Award in the Fall of 2013. Michaela has served on the President's Committee on Access to Justice for the NYSBA, the Pro Bono Coordinators Network of the NYSBA, New York State Chief Judge's Attorney Emeritus Advisory Council, and was formerly the President of both the Steuben County Bar Association and the Finger Lakes Women's Bar Association.
cls-careers@cornell.edu
128 Hughes Hall