Amy Grunder Email & Phone Number

Boston, Ma

In partnership with coalition members, direct MIRA's legislative, budgetary, and administrative advocacy to protect and advance the rights and opportunities of immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts. Leads MIRA's advocacy for legislative initiatives promoting immigrant access to resources, education, professional licensure, healthcare and safety.

Charlestown, Ma

Adjunct Professor in Department of Legal Studies and Public Safety. Taught legal ethics, legal research and writing, and constitutional law to nontraditional students pursuing AS degrees at highly diverse, multicultural community college. Consistently rated by students as a professor to return to.

Boston

Wrote news stories and analysis for small online metropolitan newsweekly covering labor, state legislation and political activism. Promoted to managing editor in 2012, managing, assigning and promoting content and writing weekly editorials.

Cambridge, Ma

Researched and wrote appeals defending asylum seekers ordered deported by Immigration Court.Persuaded Board of Immigration Appeals to grant extraordinary 80 percent of petitions.Won reversal by U.S. Court of Appeals for Fourth Circuit in year when that court granted only four percent of asylum petitions.Appointed to governing council of Mass. Bar Association Immigration Law Section, 2005-2011.

Boston

Represented participants in dozens of multimillion-dollar bond issues by New England public independent public authorities to fund construction of public works projects.Successfully defended Nigerian asylum seeker from deportation during two years of Immigration Court proceedings. Carefully built trust with traumatized, fearful client, producing confident witness able to withstand hours of hostile cross-examination by opposing counsel.

Washington, D.C.

Researched and wrote analyses assessing adequacy of legal protections for investments covered by MIGA, an international organization offering political risk insurance to private investors to promote sustainable foreign direct investment in developing-country economies.Developed analysis of limits imposed by human rights law on ability of private investors to obtain redress for government actions protecting public health, the environment or labor rights.

Washington, D.C.

Researched and wrote legal analysis for WCRO project brief on the international law of genocide for the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Cambridge, Ma

Initiated, developed and coordinated human rights investigation of violations of medical neutrality and medical ethics in Chiapas, Mexico, including successful grant proposal.Contributing Writer and Editor, "Health Care Held Hostage: Human Rights Violations of Medical Neutrality in Chiapas, Mexico," Physicians for Human Rights, Boston, 1999.Wrote and edited newsletter articles and press releases, developed and executed media strategies that raised public awareness of work with U.N. International Criminal Tribunals.

Cambridge, Ma

Edited Action for Cultural Survival, a bimonthly newsletter for indigenous rights activists, and the news section of the Cultural Survival Quarterly, a human rights journal.Acting Editor of Quarterly during transition to smaller, leaner organization.

Jd, Ma, Law & International Affairs

Activities and Societies: Joint JD/MA degree from Washington College of Law (WCL) and School of International Service (SIS)

Jd, Law, Magna Cum Laude

Activities and Societies: Staff Editor, American University International Law Review. Panelist, Status of Forces Agreements: Excerpts.

Ba, Political Science, French Minor, Certificate In Creative Writing, Summa Cum Laude

Activities and Societies: Honors in Political Science, 1991; Distinction in Political Science, 1991; First Prize, Lillian Lorraine Jones.

Certificat, Litterature Et Civilisation Francaises

Also received a Certificat Pratique de Français Commercial et Economique from the Institut Britannique de Paris 1987.

Education record