Emily Cooley L’24

Emily Cooley is from Milwaukee, WI, and received her BA in Music from Yale University in 2012. She initially came to Philadelphia in 2014 to pursue a graduate degree in music composition at the Curtis Institute of Music. While at Curtis, she became involved in community arts activism and helped develop music programming at the State Correctional Institution at Phoenix and at Project HOME. She later worked as an Adjunct Professor for the Villanova Program at SCI-Phoenix, where she designed and taught a music theory course to people pursuing undergraduate degrees from prison. Through these experiences, she developed an interest in law.

Emily wants to use her legal education to explore family law, direct services, and continue to work with people impacted by the criminal legal system. This summer, she worked at Philadelphia Legal Assistance in the Family Law Unit, assisting pro se litigants with custody and protection from abuse matters.

At Penn Carey Law, Emily is the Co-Director of Recruitment for the Custody and Support Assistance Clinic, a student pro bono project, and she serves as a board member for the Student Public Interest Network. Outside of law school, Emily teaches piano lessons and loves to cook.