ECBAWM partner Zoe Salzman has been named as a Member of the Board of Advisers of NYU School of Law’s Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights (“Bernstein Institute”). The Bernstein Institute engages in innovative research, education and advocacy to support projects around the world. Its work is focused in two major areas: encouraging and defending dissent, and legal empowerment so that the law is accessible to everyone. Its programs include the Jailhouse Lawyers’ Initiative, which advocates for the legal empowerment of current and former jailhouse lawyers and law clerks – a process central to ending the cycle of incarceration and enabling communities to obtain freedom from the inside out. As part of its holistic approach, the Bernstein Institute engages with law students, academics, interdisciplinary allies, and, most importantly, the communities that are affected by human rights violations.

The Bernstein Institute is named for Robert L. Bernstein, the founder of Human Rights Watch, and his wife Helen. Bernstein served as the Chair of Human Rights Watch from 1978-1998 and as the Founding Chair Emeritus from 1999 until his death in 2019.

Salzman will join other leaders in law, government, foreign policy, and business in providing strategic guidance to the Bernstein Institute. An experienced trial attorney, Salzman has spearheaded groundbreaking civil rights cases including a class action that ended the Tampon Tax in New York and a landmark victory in the First Department Appellate Division that rape and sexual assault are necessarily motivated at least in part by animus towards the victim’s gender and therefore prohibited by the New York City Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law.