Amelia Piazza joined SJLF as a fellow in September 2021, having recently graduated from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. As part of her two-year fellowship, Amelia will work on a variety of civil rights-related litigation, focused on achieving more just and equitable systems for our communities.

While in law school, Amelia was a student-attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center, where she worked on prisoners’ rights cases and litigation promoting pretrial detention reform and parole reform. She spent her summers at the Illinois Office of the State Appellate Defender, pursuing criminal appeals for low-income clients, and the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, where she performed court monitoring and assessment in both detained immigration court and Cook County’s Domestic Relations Division. Prior to starting law school, Amelia spent two years at Legal Aid Chicago, where she worked on medical-legal partnerships designed to improve health outcomes for patients experiencing a variety of civil legal issues.

Amelia was the executive articles editor for the Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy. She was also the recipient of Dawn Clark Netsch Public Interest Scholarship, a three-year scholarship awarded to a student who demonstrates a strong commitment to public service.

Outside of work, Amelia enjoys making marinara sauce, hiking in the mountains, and quality time with her greyhound, Jupiter.