Law student Hannah Lynn completed the City Climb in New York City— the highest open-air building ascent in the world—this past summer. Climbers scale the outside of a skyscraper more than 1,200 feet above the ground, then lean out and look down from the highest outdoor platform in New York City.
(Photos courtesy of City Climb)
By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Hannah Lynn vividly remembers seeing her parents John and Nayana—first-generation immigrants from India—study for the U.S. citizenship test.
“Becoming U.S. citizens brought them so much happiness, along with a sense of relief and security—I hope to help other individuals have that experience as well,” she says.
So it’s no surprise that Lynn, a 3L student at Detroit Mercy Law, plans on becoming an immigration attorney.
“I knew I wanted my future legal career to be in a practice area that helps elevate minorities and assist individuals immigrate to the United States,” she says. “My goal is to work as an immigration attorney and give back to the immigrant community. Having parents who immigrated here, I’ve benefitted from the U.S. immigration system in this country. I hope to help others in their journey to immigrate and make a life here.”
Lynn initially entered undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan with an interest in pursuing a career in medicine.
She also took many classes in Political Science and Asian Studies, and graduated with a degree Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience and minors in Political Science and Gender, Race, and Nation.
One class, “Women, Politics, and Society in India,” studied sections of the Indian Penal Code in depth—including the Indian legal case, Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, involving the divorce of a Muslim couple married for 43 years. “This was my first experience reading and analyzing case law and it was absolutely thrilling,” Lynn says. “It was the turning point in my undergraduate studies where I first started to consider a future career in law.”
Prior to law school, Lynn was an immigration paralegal at the Law Offices of Luke Bowman in Brighton, and the first point of contact for foreign nationals employed by corporate clients.
“I really enjoyed speaking to these individuals and hearing about their lives,” she says. “When a case was approved, I would receive phone calls or e-mails from the foreign nationals thanking me for helping them. These experiences made working in immigration law very fulfilling.”
She previously had been a litigation assistant at NachtLaw, P.C. in Ann Arbor.
Lynn currently serves as president of the law school’s Immigration Law Association (ILA) and president of the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA), as well as a member of the Women’s Law Caucus (WLC).
She chose to attend Detroit Mercy Law due to the array of immigration courses and the location near an international border. Currently enrolled in the Immigration Law Clinic, she notes the immigration coursework has been instrumental in helping her carve out a future career in immigration law. Lynn has also done some work as a research assistant for Professor Andrew Moore, who specializes in immigration law and human rights law.
During the Winter 2023 semester, Lynn worked as a law clerk at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor in Detroit, researching humanitarian country conditions and assisting and observing attorneys with immigration court proceedings.
This year, she was a summer associate at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, and Loewy LLP in New York, working on O-1B visa applications for ballet dancers.
“This was a new experience for me, and it was exciting to research various ballets and the technical requirements necessary to perform them,” she says.
She also clerks at the Law Offices of Afaf Vicky Farah, an immigration law firm in Ann Arbor, working on EB-1B petitions for professors and researchers at universities in Michigan.
“I’ve particularly enjoyed working as a law clerk because I get to delve into complex research issues and find solutions to real-world problems,” she says.
“The assignments I work on are no longer hypothetical exam scenarios but play an important role in the life of an actual person.”
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