Have you ever thought about using your law degree to pursue a job in Congress? If so, come join SABA-DC for an informative discussion on how best to pursue a career in Congress and various job opportunities. Come hear from current attorneys who work in Congress about their work and how they got a job.
Please RSVP if you are interested:
Date: October 22, 2018
Location: 2360 Rayburn House Office Building, Capitol Hill
Speakers:
Rachit Choksi is Oversight Counsel in the United States Senate. Prior to joining the Senate, Rachit served in the Obama Administration as Counsel to the Chairman at the Federal Maritime Commission, where he was the chief legal advisor, as well as a political and policy advisor, to the head of an agency charged with enforcing antitrust and consumer protection laws in the shipping industry. Prior to Rachit’s political appointment, he worked for Congresswoman Judy Chu on her House Judiciary Committee portfolio and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) on its civil rights portfolio. He previously was in private practice, served as a Deputy Attorney General in New Jersey assisting with securities fraud prosecutions, and clerked in the federal court. He also assisted John Farmer, former Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, with The Ground Truth, a book that tracked implementation of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations and created timelines for the events leading up to the events on 9/11 and the attempted attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2009. Rachit has served as an advisor on criminal justice reform to the Supreme Court of New Jersey and as a legal advisor to the Working Group on the International Anti-Corruption Court. He has served on the legal teams for several Democratic candidates at the federal, state, and local level. Prior to attending law school, Rachit had a short-lived career in journalism during which he was an Editorial Assistant to Charlie Rose.
Arya Hariharan is a Democratic Counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary, where she handles oversight, election security, cybersecurity, national security, white collar crime, and surveillance issues. Previously, she was the Legislative Director and Senior Counsel for Congressman Hank Johnson (GA), where she managed his legislative portfolio and supervised his legislative team. There she also covered defense, judiciary, technology, environment, energy, and foreign affairs issues.
Before working on the Hill, Arya was a lobbyist for the environmental law firm Earthjustice and for the American Association for Justice. She graduated from American University with a BA in 2007. She received her JD from the William & Mary School of Law in 2012 and is licensed to practice law in the state of Virginia.
She is from Philadelphia and is a former semi-professional soccer player. She currently lives in Washington D.C. with her rescued Great Dane Apollo.
Tanya Sehgal is the Elections Counsel on the Minority staff of the Committee on House Administration. In this role, she works on legislation and oversight relating to money in politics, election security, and voter suppression issues. Prior to joining the Committee, Tanya served as Counsel for Hillary for America in 2016 working on campaign finance and voter protection. She also spent several years in the private sector as a political lawyer for Skadden Arps and JPMorgan Chase & Co. She received her BA from Brown University in 2006 and her JD from Columbia University in 2011.
Aakash Singh, Senior Counsel in the United States Senate. Originally from Plainsboro, New Jersey, Aakash attended high school in Fort Myers, Florida, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. From there, he received his J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law in 2017, and joined Sen. Thom Tillis’s (R-NC) office as a legal fellow. In June, Aakash joined Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) Judiciary Committee staff as a Senior Counsel. In this position, he handles the Chairman’s immigration portfolio, and assists on a number of other issues including international narcotics, anti-money laundering, and agency oversight.
Manpreet Kaur Teji currently serves as the Judiciary Legislative Correspondent for U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (IL). Prior to that she was a legislative fellow with U.S. House of Representative Judy Chu (CA-27). Manpreet recently graduated from the John Marshall Law School in May of 2017. During her law school career she committed her time to public interest law. She was a Coles Fellow with the Illinois Human Rights Commission working on employment and housing discrimination cases. Additionally, Manpreet interned for the Federal Defender of Northern District of Illinois where her work primarily focused on criminal justice reform. She was a part of team that sought out Presidential commutations for their non-violent drug offender clients. Manpreet was proud to be a part of a team that was able to secure 3 executive commutations by President Obama. Prior to law school, Manpreet was the Program Associate at South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) in Takoma Park, MD. As part of national leading South Asian advocacy organization, Manpreet supported SAALT’s community programs including civic engagement campaigns and leadership development initiatives. Manpreet was born and brought up in Illinois and graduated from Saint Louis University with a degree in Economics in 2012. Manpreet has worked very closely with the Sikh community through her internship with the Sikh Coalition; she organized a community hearing dealing with post 9/11 discrimination and worked with Sikh youth camps in Illinois. Manpreet has always had a keen interest and desire in working with the Asian American community to address needs and concerns through projects and effective policy.