Emily Brown joins Reporters Committee as litigation fellow

In September, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press welcomed Emily Brown as a litigation fellow. In her new role, Emily conducts legal research, drafts friend-of-the-court briefs and completes other assignments to support the Reporters Committee’s litigation efforts.

“I went to law school because I was interested in First Amendment issues and free speech issues,” Emily said. “It’s been my prevailing area of interest my whole life, so this is really a manifestation of all of that ambition.”

Emily said she decided she wanted to become a lawyer when she was in middle school when she joined the debate team, winning a competition argument that the school newspaper should not be censored by the principal.

For her undergraduate degree, Emily attended Haverford College, a private liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, and majored in political science, with a minor in music. After graduating in 2013, Emily worked at a clean energy start-up before joining the Peace Corps in Lesotho, a country in Southern Africa, for three years.

In 2017, after returning from the Peace Corps, Emily attended the University of Virginia School of Law. During law school, Emily completed internships with a federal magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. She also did pro bono work for Mobilization for Justice, a legal services organization in New York City. During her final fall semester, she completed a full-time externship with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Washington, D.C.

Emily graduated from law school in May 2020 and spent the summer studying for the bar exam before joining the Reporters Committee.

Emily Brown is not admitted to practice law.

The Reporters Committee regularly files friend-of-the-court briefs and its attorneys represent journalists and news organizations pro bono in court cases that involve First Amendment freedoms, the newsgathering rights of journalists and access to public information. Stay up-to-date on our work by signing up for our monthly newsletter and following us on Twitter or Instagram.