Julia Udell is a JD candidate at Yale Law School. She graduated from Columbia University (Phi Beta Kappa), where she studied History and was a Truman Scholar.

While an undergraduate student, Julia assisted with death penalty and life without parole litigation, including by conducting an empirical study in support of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. She also interned as an investigator for the Bronx Defenders, researched for the Brennan Center for Justice, helped people submit absentee ballots from jail in state and federal elections, and volunteered on Rikers Island.

Julia later pursued graduate study at Oxford as a Euretta J. Kellett Fellow. After returning to the United States, she worked at Civil Rights Corps, developing and leading the investigation for the “Right to Hug” project (profiled in The New Yorker). Julia hopes to use her legal education in the pursuit of a more just society. She is from New York.