New Beginnings: A Note From Our Executive Director

October 3, 2024

Dear Friends,

Three weeks into my time as Executive Director, and as Her Justice gears up for an exciting fall, I am eager to begin to get to know each other.  If you’re reading this, you’re part of making Her Justice what we are. The work this community does to help women and families living in poverty in New York City—the majority of whom are escaping intimate partner violence—to build new beginnings through our civil justice system is remarkable. 

I felt called to join Her Justice because I believe deeply in both its mission and its model, which was designed with BigLaw pro bono as its animating core. Most non-profit legal services organizations do the bulk of the work with staff attorneys and supplement with firm support—but Her Justice deploys firm attorneys on every case, leveraging their talents and resources to serve vastly more clients than would otherwise be possible.  Last year 13 Her Justice attorneys mentored 1,641 volunteer attorneys who represented 4,131 women and children. They donated approximately 52,000 hours of service. That represents more than $43 MILLION invested into our civil justice system, for the New Yorkers who need it most.  

I have been so privileged to witness time and again the transformative power of pro bono representation to fundamentally shift not just our clients’ life trajectories, but also our own.For volunteer attorneys, this work is a pathway to greater commitment to our communities and to empathy and understanding for radically different life experiences. My former colleagues at Paul, Weiss and the countless attorneys at other firms I’ve appeared alongside and against are excellent lawyers, and I am eager to grow an organization that brings their tremendous talents to some of our most marginalized neighbors.   

So I knew I would be inspired by the work and the clients.  But nothing could have prepared me for just how extraordinary the Her Justice staff are.  The 41 people who also felt called to this organization do difficult, complicated work every single day, and they do it with compassion, brilliance, tenacity, and a profound sense of humanity—our clients’, their own, and ours collectively—while confronting unjust and dehumanizing systems.  While there is an undeniable heaviness to what the team does, there is also deep joy.  They are kind and they are fun.  

Three weeks into the job, I am feeling so honored and grateful to be working alongside these lovely people and you—the broader Her Justice community of partners and supporters—to drive towards a civil justice system that better serves all New Yorkers.

With gratitude,

Alexia Korberg
Executive Director