Easha Anand and Devi Rao join the firm’s Supreme Court & Appellate Program

WASHINGTON D.C. – The MacArthur Justice Center, a national civil rights law firm, is pleased to announce two new additions to its Supreme Court and Appellate Program. Easha Anand, who clerked for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Devi Rao, who clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both join the organization following substantial appellate experience in the private sector.

“Easha and Devi are extraordinary attorneys and we are thrilled they have joined us,” said Locke Bowman, Executive Director of the MacArthur Justice Center. “The MacArthur Justice Center is firmly committed to our Supreme Court and Appellate Program, which is tackling some of the most pressing issues of the day in the highest courts in the country. Easha and Devi are invaluable additions whose contributions will continue our efforts to affirm and expand this practice.”

“Easha and Devi are the best of the best,” said David Shapiro, Director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program. “Their brilliance and fight will redouble MJC’s powerful impact on the issues that will define justice in the years ahead, among them police brutality, qualified immunity, prevention of prison rape, racial justice, and solitary confinement.”

Anand comes to MacArthur Justice Center from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where her recent appellate work included securing a grant of certiorari from the Supreme Court for a victim of a police shooting, arguing and winning a juvenile life without parole case before the en banc Ninth Circuit, and briefing and arguing a Sixth Circuit reproductive rights case. In 2018, Anand directed voter protection efforts for a successful U.S. Senate campaign in Arizona. In addition to her clerkship for Justice Sotomayor, Anand clerked for Judge Paul J. Watford on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and her B.A. from Yale University. Prior to law school, she worked as an investigator on behalf of men on death row.

“I’ve long admired the Supreme Court and Appellate Program’s work,” Anand said. “I don’t think there’s a savvier, more creative, or more dedicated group of lawyers doing civil rights work in the courts of appeal. I’m honored to be joining their ranks, and I look forward to meeting the challenges and opportunities of this moment alongside such stellar attorneys.”

Prior to joining the MacArthur Justice Center, Rao was a partner in the Supreme Court and Appellate practice at Jenner & Block LLP, where she briefed and argued cases in the appellate courts, and practiced before the U.S. Supreme Court. While at Jenner, she maintained a robust pro bono practice, representing medical and mental health groups as amici curiae in courts around the country—including in cases brought by incarcerated individuals—regarding the medically-accepted standard of care for gender dysphoria. Rao has also worked on criminal justice issues more broadly, such direct criminal appeals, amici briefs relating to criminal appeals and criminal justice issues, sentencing and parole issues, and Section 1983 cases regarding conditions of confinement. Devi previously served as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge M. Margaret McKeown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Between her clerkships, Devi served as a Skadden Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center, where her work focused on using Title IX to combat sex-based discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of gender identity. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2010, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Law Review, and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

“I’m delighted to be joining such an incredible group of advocates in doing this important work, especially now. ” Rao said, “The recent powerful protests across the country have focused the public’s attention on the deep unfairness and systemic biases in our nation’s policing and criminal justice system. I hope I can help support and amplify this work in the courts.”

The MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court & Appellate Program fights for civil rights and criminal justice in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, and state supreme courts across the country. The attorneys in the Program have achieved major victories on a wide array of issues, including police misconduct, criminal procedure and sentencing, prison and jail conditions, solitary confinement, wrongful death and wrongful convictions, and habeas corpus. The Program is staffed by accomplished full-time civil rights and criminal justice lawyers who hold clinical faculty appointments at Harvard and Northwestern law schools.