Lauren Connell
Pro Bono Counsel
Areas of Focus
- Pro Bono
- Immigration Law & Policy
- Corporate Governance
- Corporate Client Partnerships
- Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG)
- Pro Bono Scholars Program
- Equal Justice Works
- Legal Services Organizations
- Helps manage the firm’s pro bono practice.
- Maintains a substantive practice in immigration matters and non-profit corporate governance.
Lauren Connell works with our Pro Bono Partner to manage the firm’s pro bono practice and develop pro bono opportunities for our lawyers.
Lauren maintains an active immigration practice, with a particular focus on defensive asylum and representation of detained migrants. She also advises nonprofit organizations on corporate governance matters. Before becoming pro bono counsel, she practiced corporate law at Akin, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and securities transactions.
Lauren began her Akin career working as the coordinator of the Karnes City Immigrant Family Pro Bono Project in San Antonio, Texas. In this role, she represented detained Central American women and children refugees seeking asylum in the United States and also coordinated the pro bono effort to match lawyers to clients. Her work was profiled in the National Law Journal and also recognized in The New York Times Magazine.
While in law school, Lauren served as an executive editor of The University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law.
- Led trips to multiple detention facilities in Texas to prepare and represent refugees seeking asylum in credible fear interviews and immigration judge reviews, including separated families
- Secured asylum for an Afghan male who served as an interpreter for U.S./NATO forces in Afghanistan
- Secured asylum for a Guatemalan female and her child who fled severe domestic violence
- Advised a non-profit organization providing legal services to unaccompanied immigrant minors on a by-laws revision and other corporate governance matters
LanguagesSpanish
Spanish
EducationJ.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2014
B.A., George Washington University, summa cum laude, 2009
J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2014
B.A., George Washington University, summa cum laude, 2009
Bar AdmissionsNew York
New York
- Her Justice, Commitment to Justice Awards, 2021.
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New York Law Journal, Rising Stars, 2021.