Tell us about your community growing up. Looking back, how did they shape who you are now?

I grew up in a vibrant Persian community. My parents each left Iran after the Revolution. We spoke Farsi at home and I grew up eating Persian food and being surrounded by cousins, aunts, and uncles with shared culture. I grew up in a community where every single person in the generation just above me had given up everything familiar to them when the regime changed in Iran to start anew in America. This has left an indelible mark on me. I realized some years ago that my intellectual interest in the rule of law and institutional stability is rooted in my family history and culture.

Describe your journey to law school. What motivated you to apply?

To be honest, I was a little naïve to be making that decision when I was in college. I didn’t fully grasp what a legal education was or where it could possibly lead me. I had taken quite a few law-related classes in undergrad—philosophy of crime, civil rights and civil liberties, separation of powers, antitrust—and we would read cases. Those law-based classes were some of my favorites and I wanted more. It was important to me that being a lawyer was a professional and stable career; no one in my immediate family had gone to law school, but it felt like the right next step for me. I did not grasp what career opportunities I would be able to unlock as a lawyer, but the law school part seemed like something I could enjoy.

What was your law school experience like?

I genuinely loved law school. Intellectually, I felt like I was growing much faster than I had previously. Whether it was civil procedure, federal criminal law, deals litigation, or federal courts, I was drawn into the material. At the same time, I was not sure that I wanted to work at a New York law firm for my whole career. I started to attend those lunchtime talks about what you could do with your law degree. I heard from businesspeople, public servants, academics, and more.

My law school was also a very competitive environment. Whether it was for grades or clerkships, I did not feel like I was in the know or that I had a community lifting me up. I had a lot of good friends and professors who encouraged me, but the overall ethos was tough. One thing I learned is that you will not necessarily get the things you have earned by keeping your head down. You have to look up and ask for help and advice.

Did you know about appellate work in law school? If not, when and how did it first get on your radar and why were you drawn to it?

I didn’t realize that appellate work was its own separate field until I started clerking at an appellate court. I knew that the district court clerkship experience was a different one from the appellate court clerkship experience, but that was about it. I spent my 1L and 2L summers at law firms in New York that did not have specialized appellate practices. They were excellent law firms that did not split their practice areas in that way. When I watched my co-clerk navigate her post-clerkship law firm search, I realized that she was much more intentional about the kind of work she would be doing and the people she would work with than I had been during summer law firm recruiting in law school.

Towards the tail end of law school, I had a professor who had served as a Bristow Fellow in the Justice Department. It seemed to me like an incredible opportunity and a dream job for anyone so junior in the law. Half on a lark, I put in an application, thinking there was no way I would be selected. It was the only job I applied for because I so firmly believed that I would return to the law firm that I had worked for during my 2L summer, which I had enjoyed. I was selected for the job and that completely changed the trajectory of my career. Suddenly, I was at the Justice Department with the most elite and experienced Supreme Court litigators in the country. I learned so much from them and they provided me with my first appellate argument. Even though I lost brutally, I was hooked on appellate argument.

Tell us about one of your appellate cases that you found particularly meaningful.

When I was a Bristow Fellow, I worked on Young v. UPS. Ms. Young brought a pregnancy discrimination claim against UPS because they had refused her accommodations that, she claimed, UPS has granted to others. The Supreme Court held that to bring a disparate treatment claim under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, a pregnant employee needed to show that she was denied an accommodation that the employer later provided to another employee with similar restrictions. It was surreal to work on a case that advanced women’s equality, particularly when I was so junior.

How often do you encounter women, particularly women of color, in the appellate field? Why do you think that representation is important?

I think that in absolute terms, there are a lot of accomplished and wonderful women in the Appellate Bar. But the Bar is incredibly specialized and, as a relative matter, women are not in the majority, particularly women of color. Once I was in the door, I saw enough women to feel like I could do it too. Two of my earliest appellate experiences were clerking for women, so it was clear to me that there was space. In candor, though, most of the people I worked with were men. Those men have been incredibly supportive of my career; they have helped me advocate for myself and have given me oral arguments that they could have taken for themselves. That means that I have had to be comfortable knowing that sometimes, I will be the only person who looks like me in a space. It means that I have had to be comfortable proving myself to people who do not look like me. And I have had to be comfortable asking people with vastly different experiences for support. That has not always been an easy thing to do.

Sitting where I am now, every so often my women students will share what it means for them to be in a class with me. It is also meaningful for me to have them in my classes. I don’t take it for granted.

What advice would you give to a law student of color who aspires to be where you are now?

There was a lot of chance involved in my career turning out the way that it has. It is also important to recognize the people who uplifted and advocated for me along the way. I do not think it is possible to build this kind of career without support. When you are a first-generation law student or come from a background that isn’t well represented in the appellate field, it makes appellate law seem more out of reach. It’s not. But you might have to prove yourself where others might get the benefit of the doubt; not every day, but at least sometimes. My advice is to put in the work. Where other people might have connections, you will have to earn those connections. Law school was a place where I could truly say that no one outworked me. I studied, I paid attention, and I soaked it all in. I had to show the people who wrote letters of recommendation for me that I earned their support.

I also tried very hard to find a circle of people who I could trust who would support me. But the search for a “mentor” is not an easy one. Sometimes, the person you are seeking out has other things that demand their attention, or you might think you click, but that person doesn’t. You should accept that and be forgiving. But be persistent in pursuit of your goals: find other people who have the bandwidth to help you. It is okay if it feels uncomfortable.

What’s one thing law schools and/or the appellate bar can do to ensure our highest courts are representative of all our communities?

I think we need to give all people the opportunity to demonstrate their excellence. The appellate bar is very specialized and it is almost exclusively reserved for people who have had appellate clerkships, but I think there is an opportunity for change. More often, we are seeing appellate judges hire several years after graduation. I think this means that appellate practices within law firms have a big role to play: they should be open to younger associates working on their cases and demonstrating their excellence before they are hired for clerkships. When those associates exceed expectations, appellate practitioners should help those associates secure their clerkships. I think that will change the face of appellate clerkships, which will change the face of the appellate bar.