Emma Friedland

Emma came to legal work by a non-traditional path including living in Mexico for three years after college and studying at the Universidad de Guadalajara, working as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking HEAD Start families in South Central Los Angeles (the city where she grew up), and translating journalism of the humanitarian crises in Mexico and Central America for publication in U.S. literary magazines. In 2018, she began leveraging her background to build out robust removal defense cases and advocacy for her neighbors facing deportation while working within Oregon’s Equity Corps statewide universal representation model and as a Department of Justice fully accredited representative. She graduated magna cum laude from Elon University School of Law, where she had the opportunity to intern with Amica Center’s Immigration Impact Lab, Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Immigration Pathways for Victims project, and Al Otro Lado, and where she organized the first pro se defensive asylum workshop at Elon’s Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic. She is mom to an eccentric six-year-old and a big fan of NBA basketball.