Felicia Ellsworth, '05: To Help Harvard Defend Against Allegations It Discriminates Against Asian-Americans in its Admissions Process
Meet Three of the Lawyers Defending Harvard's Race-Conscious Admissions Policies
Meet three of the lawyers who will help Harvard defend against allegations it discriminates against Asian-Americans in its admissions process: Felicia H. Ellsworth, '05, William F. Lee, and Seth P. Waxman.
Felicia H. Ellsworth both ran a marathon and had a child while clerking for Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, a “very impressive” feat according to fellow Roberts clerk Paul J. Nathanson.
Nathanson said Ellsworth brings extensive experience as a trial and appellate litigator, as well as a “brilliant legal mind,” to Harvard’s legal team.
Currently, Ellsworth serves as a partner in WilmerHale’s Boston office with Lee.
She began her law career — after graduating with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School—with clerkships under Roberts and Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Ellsworth joined Wilmerhale in 2008. Early in her career, she worked with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to argue against the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. She was promoted to partner in 2014.
Since then, she has been regularly ranked as one of the top attorneys in Massachusetts. She was named to the 2017 “Top Women of Law” list of the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and a “2016 Trial Rising Star” by Law360.
Ellsworth, like many of the lawyers for both Harvard and SFFA, has a good deal of experience litigating before the Supreme Court. In 2014, she represented the beverage brand POM Wonderful in a suit against Coca-Cola before the Court. And in 2015, she co-authored an amicus brief with a team of WilmerHale lawyers on behalf of 303 conservative activists and politicians in Obergefell v. Hodges, arguing that the government should legalize same-sex marriage.
“By and large, people on both sides are big minds, constitutional lawyers,” Nathanson said. “It's not the normal trial lawyers you would find in litigation.”
"This is a small, small close-knit group of people who clerked together and are very well-equipped to litigate these types of complicated constitutional issues,” he added.
Read more at The Harvard Crimson