Lavanya Prabhakar | Former Public Interest Fellow Copy

During her Fellowship, Lavanya Prabhakar developed her litigation skills through substantive legal work on a range of cases covering consumer protection and civil rights. For example, Lavanya was involved in each stage of the litigation process, from the brainstorming and complaint drafting stages, to drafting oppositions to motions to dismiss, prepping experts for deposition, and drafting mediation statements. Additionally, Lavanya contributed to the successful class certification of a class of incarcerated individuals bringing claims against a prison healthcare contractor that denied medication for opioid use disorder. Not only was the case successful on both the district court and appellate level on the issue of class certification, Lavanya successfully briefed a motion to strike confidentiality designations, which led to the unsealing of hundreds of pages of prison contractor policy documents, which will be useful in other prison class actions across the country.

Lavanya also had the opportunity to work on other noteworthy class actions, including multiple data privacy and data breach cases, deceptive advertising cases involving Silicon Valley companies, and a class action involving a vendor’s software failure during the February 2025 California Bar Exam.

As part of her Fellowship, Lavanya spent three months working at Public Justice in its Student Civil Rights and Access to Justice Projects. There, she conducted extensive legal research into the application of § 1981 and the D.C. Human Rights Act to harassment and race discrimination claims in schools and participated in appellate briefing seeking to reinstate federal protections for pregnant students. She also helped write multiple amicus briefs focused supporting former SpaceX employees’ right to bring lawsuits for their sexual harassment claims under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harrassment Act (EFASASHA) and arguing for the right to mail access in jails and prisons.

Lavanya is very grateful for the litigation experience and mentorship she received, and connections she made during her Fellowship. She is confident her time at TZ has prepared her for what’s next in her legal career.