Profiles of the J.S.M. Students

cbrandao@stanford.edu

Cristina Brandao received her LLB from the Pontific Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (2001). While at the Catholic University (PUC-Rio), Brandao was elected the Student Union’s academic coordinator for two consecutive years. In 2002, she entered the Master’s Program in Law and Sociology at the Federal Fluminense University (PPGSD/UFF). Her Master’s dissertation was about the Brazilian Supreme Court cases involving the principle of reasonableness. Later on, an abbreviated version of her dissertation was published in an important Brazilian Constitutional Law magazine (Revista de Direito Constitucional e Internacional). After graduation, she lectured Constitutional Law in Brazil from 2004 to 2007, in both private and public Universities. In 2007, she accepted a Visiting Scholar position at the UCLA School of Law.

Before coming to Stanford, Cristina Brandao worked as a legal intern on the Central American Resource Center at Los Angeles (CARECEN-LA). Her job was to help undocumented women who have left abusive relationships submit U visa applications. She also worked as paralegal at the Law Offices of Tucker H. Sandler, a Los Angeles law firm specialized in Immigration Law.

For the SPILS thesis, she is going to focus her studies on transitional justice systems in Latin America, specially the cases of Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

nohar@stanford.edu

In 2007 Nohar earned her LLB (magna cum laude) from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, with a joint degree of the university’s Interdisciplinary Humanities Honors Program. In her second year at law school she attended an international summer program given by Georgetown University (Washington DC) and The American Institute for Political and Economic Studies, aimed for young leaders exploring cultural and political issues regarding Eastern Mediterranean region. During this year she was also a student editor in the Hebrew University Law Review (Mishpatim), and attended a faculty clinic where she assisted the municipal defense attorney. In her third and fourth years in law school she was a teaching assistant in the fields of contract law and jurisprudence, and took part in few volunteering activities.

As an intern, Nohar worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levi, and was admitted to the Israeli Bar in 2008. In the same year she joined The Israeli Presidential Youth Forum, which was established in order to advise the Israeli President in matters of young leadership, culture and social activity. After traveling in the Far East, she worked as legal adviser to Judge Berliner, Chief of the Tel-Aviv District Court.

Agnes Chong completed her Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Arts (Communications) ranked fifth in her graduating year with First Class Honours at the University of Technology, Sydney in 2003. After graduation, she worked exclusively in the community law sector as an attorney, policy officer, and community legal educator, specializing in consumer credit law. Between 2004 and 2007, she served as a Board Member of the Combined Community Legal Centres Group (NSW) Inc, the peak body of community legal centres in the state of New South Wales, where she also co-convened the Law Reform and Policy Committee.  

In 2004, she co-founded the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network (AMCRAN http://amcran.org), an organisation devoted to protecting the civil rights of all Australians by drawing on the rich civil rights heritage of
the Islamic faith. During her time as co-convenor, she led the production of
all three editions of the publication, Anti-terrorism laws: ASIO, the Police
and You, a guide to the rights and responsibilities under Australia's
anti-terror laws. She also conducted extensive community legal education
training on the topic not only to the general public, but also contributed
to the continuing education of attorneys on the new counter-terrorism laws.
She remains serving as the Chairperson on the Advisory Board of AMCRAN.

Agnes moved to the United States in November 2007, where she worked as the Civil Rights and Outreach Coordinator and then as Director of Programs and Outreach at the Council on American-Islamic Relations - San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, before joining Stanford Law School as a SPILS fellow in 2009.

Tyson Dyck, from Canada, completed his B.A. (Great Distinction) at the University of Saskatchewan, and his LL.B. (Dean's List) at Dalhousie Law School. Since 2004, Tyson has practiced law in the Environmental, Health and Safety and Climate Change and Emissions Trading groups of Torys LLP's Toronto office. There, he has advised clients on a range of environmental matters, with a focus on the development and financing of solar, wind, hydro, natural gas and nuclear generation projects. In his climate change practice, Tyson has advised clients on carbon finance and disclosure, as well as emissions trading and regulation, publishing numerous articles and book chapters on these topics. While at Torys LLP, he completed secondments with the legal department of Ontario Power Generation, one of North America's largest electricity generators, and the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, a Toronto-based environmental research organization. Tyson has also provided pro bono assistance to Canada's National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, advising on government liability for failing to adapt infrastructure to climate change, and to the World Wildlife Fund, advising on ratification strategies for the Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. Tyson is a recipient of a 2009-2010 Fulbright Award. His current research focuses on international climate regulation.

Asdis Snaevarr is from Iceland. She earned a Bachelor degree in law from the University of Iceland in 2007 and her Magister Juris from the same university in 2009. During law school she received a Nordplus scholarship to pursue exchange studies at Lund University in Sweden. In Lund she focused on EU law and EU competition law. In 2008 she did an internship at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in Iceland. Other internships in Iceland include the Office of Public Works and Property and the District Magistrate. Asdis has published two theses and conducted various research in the field of EU law, competition law, corporate law and property law. In her BA thesis she examined the implementation of EU law into domestic law in connection to criminal prosecutions. In her Master thesis she did research in the field of expropriation law. Asdis is fluent in Icelandic (native), Swedish and English, proficient in Danish and Norwegian, intermediate in French and has studied Spanish and German. As a SPILS fellow she is doing research on the banking crisis in Iceland.

Ms. Wahhab joins the SPILS program after obtaining her Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Cambridge, where she specialized in international law. Previously, Ms. Wahhab worked as a litigator at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Montréal where she practiced in the firm’s international commercial litigation department. She also worked as a law clerk to a Justice of the Québec Court of Appeal. Ms. Wahhab earned a Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) and a Bachelor of Common Law (LL.B.) from McGill University in 2006 and placed on the Dean’s Honor List. The same year, Ms. Wahhab completed the summer program offered by the World Trade Institute in Bern, Switzerland, where she studied international trade law and policy. During her time at McGill University, Ms. Wahhab worked as a research assistant in administrative law, taught the McGill Faculty of Law course on legal research, writing and methodology, and participated in a year-long seminar on legal education. In 2004, Ms. Wahhab took part in an academic exchange program with the University of Copenhagen, where she studied public international law. Ms. Wahhab is a Member of the Québec Bar and is fluent in French and English.