Amreeta Mathai, Esq.

Amreeta Susy Mathai (she/her) is the Director of Strategy and Integrated Program at the New York Civil Liberties Union where she oversees holistic campaigns across the NYCLU's legal, policy, field organizing, and communications departments. Prior to joining the NYCLU in 2022, she was a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Program, where she focused on a variety of impact litigation including challenging debtors’ prisons, criminalization of poverty practices, and inadequate provision of indigent defense. She also drafted amicus briefs on algorithmic discrimination and police in schools. Prior to joining the ACLU, Amreeta was a Team Leader and staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders where she co-managed an interdisciplinary, holistic team of 41 advocates in criminal, civil, family and immigration defense. As a civil attorney on an interdisciplinary defense team, she directly represented clients in a variety of civil proceedings stemming from interactions with the criminal justice system including eviction proceedings in civil court and administrative fora, employment hearings, and public benefits hearings.

Amreeta also served as a Lecturer-in-Law in the clinical program at Columbia Law School where she lectured on holistic public defense. After graduating from law school, Amreeta clerked for the Honorable Ivan L.R. Lemelle in the Eastern District of Louisiana. While in law school, Amreeta participated in the Predatory Lending Prevention/Consumer Protection Clinic in Jamaica Plains, Boston, the Harvard Human Rights Clinic and interned with plaintiff side employment firm Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C as well as the ACLU’s National Security Program.

Amreeta received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, her M.Phil. in Development Studies from the University of Oxford and her B.A. in History from the University of Chicago.