Noel Leon L’13

Noel is currently a law clerk to the Hon. Victor A. Bolden on the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. Before clerking, Noel was Senior Counsel for Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), where she developed and led an initiative to support and protect abortion providers from employment discrimination. Noel began this project as a Legal Fellow at NWLC and grew the initiative into one which provided support to health care professionals and students across the country who wanted to provide, obtain training in, or advocate for abortion but faced barriers from their institutions. Noel developed a Know Your Rights campaign educating health care professionals about their rights under state and federal non-discrimination laws and in employment contracts. Noel’s work in reproductive rights, health, and justice began during law school, where Noel was Direct Service Director for the Penn Law Reproductive Rights Law Project (subsequently merged with Penn Law’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice chapter, now If/When/How). In that role, Noel led Penn’s involvement in the Philadelphia Judicial Bypass project, through which law students helped minors seeking abortion in Philadelphia navigate state law requiring that minors obtain either parental consent to abortion or a judge’s order permitting them to have an abortion without such consent. During law school, Noel interned with the Public Policy Litigation & Law division at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Women’s Law Project of Pennsylvania. After law school, Noel was a Fellow at the national office of Law Students for Reproductive Justice (now If/When/How), supported by a Penn Law Public Interest Fellowship. She was then a Reproductive Justice Fellow at the Reproductive Health Technologies Project in Washington, D.C. While at Penn Law, Noel also served as Co-President and Auction Co-Chair for the Equal Justice Foundation, Executive Articles Editor for the Journal of Law & Social Change (JLASC), and Co-Chair for the Penn Law Light Opera Company, and a member of the Penn Law Civil Practice Clinic. She is a 2009 graduate of Yale University and is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas.