Jennifer Nelson

Jennifer Nelson is a senior staff attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where she leads its pre-publication and pre-broadcast review practice, oversees the publication of and updates to the Reporters Committee’s legal guides, and supervises its hotline for journalists. Nelson also regularly represents news organizations and journalists in public records, court access, and legal defense matters before federal and state courts.

Nelson is a former lecturer and co-director of the First Amendment Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Prior to joining the Reporters Committee, Nelson was a litigation associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where her practice focused on complex litigation and congressional investigations. Before law school, Nelson covered breaking news for the City & Region section as an editorial assistant and freelance reporter for The Boston Globe. During her tenure at the Globe, she investigated and co-authored a front page, 3,000-word investigative report on restaurant health inspection practices in Boston.

Nelson earned her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2011, where she was a managing editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law. During law school, Nelson traveled to Egypt as a Cowan Human Rights Fellow to research government-imposed restrictions on journalists, bloggers, and social media activists. Nelson earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northeastern University in 2007.

She resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband, son, and Shetland Sheepdog.

Licensed to practice law in New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.