Elyse Diamond

Education

Adjunct Professor Elyse Diamond is the Director of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) and leads the law school’s Access to Justice Project, including helping to launch the Legal Hand Call-In Center serving Westchester operated by the Elisabeth Haub School of Law. She also serves as a member of the Environmental Law Program as the law school’s Environmental Law Program Career Specialist. As PILC’s Director, Professor Diamond focuses on setting the career and professional development strategy for and advising students interested in public service, to assist them in identifying and obtaining internships and post-graduate positions and building successful careers, in legal not-for-profit public interest advocacy and policy organizations, in federal, state and local government, and in prosecuting and defender offices. She serves as the primary federal and state judicial clerkship advisor and collaborates closely with all faculty and staff in Haub Law’s criminal justice, environmental law, and public interest programs. With PILC’s staff, Professor Diamond also oversees the PILSO/PILC Summer Public Interest Fellowship Program and the Pro Bono Justice Program. 

Professor Diamond joined Haub Law as an Adjunct Professor of Law in 2001 and her teaching has focused primarily on professional skills, legal writing, and access to justice-oriented courses. She currently co-teaches the Access to Justice Lab, an interdisciplinary course in which law and computer science students follow a user-centered design process to design a technology tool prototype to address a real-world access to justice gap. She also teaches the Access to Justice Seminar as well as the required intensive first-year Legal Skills I and II courses.  Past courses have included Topics in Legal Theory: Second Circuit, Pre-Trial Civil Litigation Simulation, Advanced Appellate Advocacy, and Criminal Law and Legal Writing and Analysis.

Professor Diamond has created numerous specialized career guides, regularly moderates and serves as a panelist on public service professional development programs, writes and presents on public service and environmental career and professional development issues, and has served on local and national committees and workgroups for AALS, NALP, and the New York State Commission on Access to Justice, among other professional development organizations and groups. She is a current Hudson Valley Justice Center Board Member, was an Equal Justice Works, National Advisory Committee Member, 2021-2023, and developed law school competency rubrics and assessment tools for professional communication skills for the Halloren Center for Ethics and Professionalism, St. Thomas School of Law.

Professor Diamond received her JD, cum laude, from Fordham Law School, where she was a member of the Fordham Law Review. Prior to joining Haub Law, she spent three years as a full-time Legal Practice Skills faculty member at Suffolk Law School in Boston. She started her legal career as a litigation associate at national law firms.

Honors & Awards:
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Class of 2023 Staff/Department Award for Excellence
Hudson Valley Justice Center, Board Member, Summer 2022-Present
Equal Justice Works, National Advisory Committee Member, Summer 2021-2023 
Pace University Outstanding Contribution Award, 2017