The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont has hired two attorneys to work as staff attorneys/public advocates.
Jay Diaz of Williston comes to the ACLU after serving as a staff attorney with Vermont Legal Aid since 2012; and Lia Ernst of Medford, Mass., who previously served as a legal fellow at the ACLU in Massachusetts.
Both attorneys will serve in new joint roles as litigators and advocates, according to a news release issued Monday. Allen Gilbert, the executive director of the Vermont chapter of the ACLU, said the two positions “reflect a broadened focus by the ACLU-VT to use public education campaigns and legislative advocacy, as well as traditional litigation, to reach civil liberties goals.”
“Jay and Lia are wonderful additions to our staff,” Gilbert said. “Together they can help the ACLU-VT be stronger internally as well as operate more effectively externally.”
Diaz has focused on school discipline reform in his role at Vermont Legal Aid and led an effort to urge the Legislature to review school suspension and expulsion laws.
“Diaz examined Vermont school discipline records and determined that students of color and students with disabilities are two to three times more likely to be excluded from school through suspension than other students,” according to a statement from the ACLU.
He is a graduate of Boston College Law School; he attended New York University as an undergraduate.
Ernst previously worked as a legal intern at the ACLU of Michigan.
She clerked for two years with U.S. District Court Judge Julian Cook Jr. in Detroit, and then clerked for a year with Judge Norman Stahl of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.
She most recently served as an associate attorney at a Michigan law firm. Ernst is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. She also holds a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin; her undergraduate degree is from Swarthmore College. She served two years in the Peace Corps in Guinea, West Africa, after college.
ACLU-VT’s previous staff attorney, Dan Barrett, left in May to take a job as legal director at the ACLU of Connecticut.
Read the story on VTDigger here: ACLU of Vermont announces two new staff attorneys.
