Stanford Law School Honors Yasmeen Hassan and Stephanie Rudolph with Public Service Awards

Stanford Law School Honors Yasmeen Hassan and Stephanie Rudolph with Public Service Awards 7
SLS Public Service Award winners Yasmeen Hassan (second from right) and Stephanie Rudolph (far right) with Dean Jenny Martinez (far left) as well as John and Terry Levin (center).

Each year, Stanford Law School’s John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law honors two exceptional attorneys who have committed themselves to public service. This year Yasmeen Hassan, Global Executive Director of Equality Now, received the Stanford Law School (SLS) National Public Service Award, and Stephanie Rudolph, JD ’11, Director of the Source of Income Discrimination Unit at the New York City Commission on Civil Rights, received the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award.

The SLS National Public Service Award honors attorneys whose commitment to public service has had a national impact, and the Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award recognizes an alumnus/a whose outstanding work has advanced justice and social change in the lives of vulnerable populations on a community, national or international level.

“John and Terry Levin’s vision of a school that provides students with the ability to find meaning in their careers and help the greater good continues to hold true,” said Jenny Martinez, dean and Richard E. Lang Professor of Law. “Stephanie and Yasmeen are shining examples of how the legal system can be used to address inequality and advance important social change.”

“We are here today to celebrate the rule of law and two of its warriors, who partner with clients and communities to expand civil and human rights,” Diane Chin, Associate Dean for Public Service and Public Interest Law, said in her opening remarks at the award event. “The core commitment of today’s honorees is to ensure that those in society who are impacted by policies are at the table when those policies are drafted, that they have input into the enforcement mechanisms that will be used to advance their rights. So – whether it is from a city office in Manhattan, or on the ground in Iraq, Uganda, the US, the UK, Tanzania, or Cambodia, these amazing women lawyers are fighting the battles that need to be fought and in the process defining novel strategies where the law can enter to uphold the rights of those in need.”

Miles L. Rubin Public Interest Award Recipient: Stephanie Rudolph

Stephanie Rudolph accepting her award

Stephanie Rudolph graduated from Stanford Law School in 2011 and currently directs the Source of Income Discrimination Unit at the New York City Commission on Human Rights. In her role as director, Rudolph supervises a team of attorneys and intervention specialists charged with enforcing the source of income provisions of the New York City Human Rights Law. In New York, landlords and brokers may not discriminate against housing applicants who receive any form of public assistance, including federal housing subsidies and vouchers like Section 8. Rudolph’s team intervenes in “real time” to preserve housing opportunities for those facing discrimination and files complaints against landlords and brokers accused of discrimination based on a tenant’s or applicant’s receipt of public assistance.

Prior to joining the Commission, Rudolph represented tenants in affirmative litigation against neglectful and harassing landlords at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (“NYLPI”) and the Urban Justice Center (“UJC”). In group cases filed on behalf of up to 300 tenants in both state and federal court, Rudolph compelled owners to restore basic services, cease unlawful discrimination, and remediate indoor toxins such as mold, lead, and asbestos. After serving as a 2011 Skadden Fellow at NYLPI, Rudolph went on to become a senior staff attorney at the Community Development Project of the UJC where she worked closely with community groups across the city.

As she accepted the award, Rudolph had some sage advice for the young lawyers and law students in the room. After telling them to “fake it until you make it” and that Google is an attorney’s best friend, she talked about how to use power. “Consider the power you have to work within a broken system,” said Rudolph, noting the benefits and limitations of a Stanford law degree. “When I’m fighting for the rights of tenants, I think about how I can use the system and I search for sources of power. Pay attention to what power you have, and if you don’t have power, figure out how to get it. Be creative and scrappy. It is tough out there and you are needed by clients who have far less power than you.”

National Public Service Award Recipient: Yasmeen Hassan

Yasmeen Hassan is the Global Executive Director of Equality Now, a human rights organization focused on legal equality for women and girls, with offices in the U.S. and abroad. Before that, Hassan was with the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women where she worked on ensuring gender equality in the laws of countries emerging from conflict and for the Secretary General’s study of violence against women. She practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and California and she clerked on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

Yasmeen Hassan accepting her award

Hassan currently serves on the boards of Musawah (a movement for equality in the Muslim family) and the Global Women’s March, and on the advisory boards of The Women’s Building (New York), Gucci’s Chime for Change and The Council on Foreign Relations. 

Equality for women was a driving force for Hassan since an early age. Growing up in Pakistan, her defining moment came at age 10 when her country’s laws were ‘Islamacized’ treating women as second class citizens. Advocating for women’s rights became a major part of Yasmeen’s education and career, ultimately leading her to author the first study of domestic violence in Pakistan which became the nation’s submission to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

“Equality under the law is the first essential step to gender equality,” said Hassan. “Through the work we do at Equality Now, we work to change laws that discriminate against women, laws that allow wife beating or rape and laws that prohibit women from working, inheriting or owning property ownership. There is a direct correlation between the level of peace in a society and how equally men and women are treated. We all want a better and more peaceful world and we can only get there by treating women as equals. This is the struggle of men and women working together to fix humanity so that we can all thrive.”  

About the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law

The mission of the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law at Stanford Law School is – through courses, research, pro bono projects, public lectures, academic conferences, funding programs and career development – to make public service a pervasive part of every law student’s experience and ultimately help shape the values that students take into their careers. It also engages in programming and research that support development of the public interest legal community to increase access to justice.

About Stanford Law School

Stanford Law School is one of the nation’s leading institutions for legal scholarship and education. Its alumni are among the most influential decision makers in law, politics, business and high technology. Faculty members argue before the Supreme Court, testify before Congress, produce outstanding legal scholarship and empirical analysis, and contribute regularly to the nation’s press as legal and policy experts. Stanford Law School has established a new model for legal education that provides rigorous interdisciplinary training, hands-on experience, global perspective and focus on public service, spearheading a movement for change.