Allison Perlin L’20

Allison Perlin is dedicated to using her law degree to pursue human and civil rights. At Penn Carey Law, Allison served as Director of the International Human Rights Advocates, Litigation Manager for the Criminal Records Expungement Project, a National Next Generation Leader of the American Constitution Society, and a Perry World House Graduate Associate. She completed her law school capstone project, “Expansive Arrest Authority & Over-Policing of Communities of Color,” with the ACLU and co-authored the article “Use of Lethal Force by law Enforcement Officials on Persons with Mental, Cognitive, and Developmental Disabilities”. Allison also interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as a Leo Model Fellow and Human Rights First. At graduation, Allison was awarded the Dean Jefferson B. Fordham Human Rights Award.

Following law school, Allison was the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law Review Fellow and, later, a Litigation Associate Attorney at Human Rights First. There, she represented clients and pursued five federal impact litigation suits advocating for human and civil rights in addition to amicus briefing at the Supreme Court, federal appellate courts, and international tribunals. Allison then clerked in the Eastern District of Court of Pennsylvania.

Originally from Kildeer, IL, Allison received her BA with Highest Honors from the University of Wisconsin. She majored in Political Science and created and piloted the International Human Rights major. Her honors thesis analyzed peacebuilding after genocide. Before law school, Allison worked to ensure accountability for genocide committed by governments when working at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. There, she focused on addressing violent crimes disproportionately perpetrated based on religion, ethnicity, and gender.