Brennan Center for Justice

Andrew Cohen

Fellow

Andrew Cohen is a Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. He is also a contributing editor at The Atlantic, legal analyst for 60 Minutes, and chief analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News. He has won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal analysts and commentators. He is the winner of the American Bar Association’s 2012 Silver Gavel Award for his Atlantic commentary about the death penalty in America. Follow Cohen on Twitter at @CBSAndrew.

Amos Toh

Counsel/Katz Fellow

Amos serves as a Counsel/Katz Fellow at the Brennan Center. His work examines how foreign and international law may be used to advance civil rights reforms across a wide range of issues, from counterterrorism to mass incarceration to campaign finance. He works mainly with the Liberty and National Security Program, which seeks to ensure that our government respects human rights and fundamental freedoms in conducting the fight against terrorism. Before joining the Brennan Center, Amos was a research associate with the NYU Center for Constitutional Transitions in New York, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Beirut. His work at both organizations focused on constitutional design in the Middle East post-Arab Spring.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy

Fellow

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is a Brennan Center Fellow and an Assistant Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law. She is the author of Safeguarding Markets from Pernicious Pay to Play: A Model Explaining Why the SEC Regulates Money in Politics. In 2013, Professor Torres-Spelliscy was named as a member of the Lawyers of Color's "50 Under 50" list of minority law professors  making an impact in legal education.

Sidney S. Rosdeitcher

Senior Policy Advisor

Sidney Rosdeitcher is a retired litigation partner from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, L.L.P., where he is now Of Counsel. He was lead counsel in the Center's defense of Santa Fe's Living Wage Ordinance and worked with the Center in earlier living wage litigation in St. Louis. He has long been active in public interest matters. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, chaired its Committees on Civil Rights, International Human Rights, and Professional and Judicial Ethics, and Council on International Affairs and is now Chair of its Task Force on National Security and the Rule of Law. He is a Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and co-chair of its Subcommittee on the Powers of Congress. He received the Lawyers Committee's Segal Tweed Award for his contribution to civil rights and Human Rights First's Marvin E. Frankel Pro Bono Award for his asylum work. He also taught civil liberties at Brooklyn Law School and ethics at Columbia Law School. Before joining Paul, Weiss, Mr. Rosdeitcher served in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and on leave of absence from Paul, Weiss, as assistant to Commissioner Philip Elman of the Federal Trade Commission.

Roopal Patel

Counsel/Katz Fellow

Roopal Patel is a Counsel/Katz Fellow* in the Brennan Center’s Justice Program. Roopal focuses on ending unnecessary incarceration, and has specialized expertise in promoting policies to end debtors’ prisons. She has brought much need national attention to this issue and has documented the national trend of incarceration of the poor due to inability to pay criminal justice debt, and proposed reforms. She also researches and devises reforms to sentencing laws and works to improve the quality of legal representation in criminal defense, immigration proceedings, and civil legal aid. She seeks to improve justice for marginalized communities and end racial disparities.

Read more about our Fellowship Opportunities.