Alumni Spotlight: Julia Ansanelli '16

Legal Eagle: One Bright and Busy Corporate Attorney Happily Makes Time to Fight for Asylum for Immigrant Teens

When corporate attorney Julia Ansanelli turns her considerable attention to a challenge, trust that it will get solved. A little perspective: Ansanelli was the top student at Touro University’s Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center (Touro Law Center) from the first semester to the last, graduating as class valedictorian in 2016. This was accomplished while she worked a full-time job.

Ansanelli was placed as a summer associate at the New York City-based global corporate giant, Proskauer Rose LLP, and was hired immediately upon graduation. Today, she is a senior associate in the 800-strong team of lawyers around the world. “I felt well prepared because of Touro’s uniquely hands-on approach to law school,” says Ansanelli, who applied after hearing her attorney husband’s glowing assessment of the school. Indeed, her work at Touro was once recognized by the highest court of Idaho, which cited for support her Touro Law Review Case Note in a decision called Verity v. U.S.A. Today, 436 P.3d 653 (2019). “We had judges as teachers, we were across the street from the Eastern District of New York’s courthouse where we could get externships with federal judges and we all received amazing support from the deans, professors and administrators, who helped guide us in our careers in the real world. I would not be where I am today if not for the Touro’s Career Services director’s encouragement and guidance.”

Among her many real-world responsibilities, Ansanelli, 34, is a member of the Litigation Department and of the firm’s White Collar Defense & Investigations, Securities Litigation and Asset Management Litigation Practice Groups. The mother of two young children, Ansanelli has defended clients facing criminal and regulatory investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. In addition to those roles, she is a member of the litigation team that represents the Financial Oversight and Management Board in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy proceedings. She is also a member of the firm’s Associate Council, for which she recently led an initiative that resulted in policy changes to encourage recycling throughout the firm’s Times Square building.

Spare time may sound oxymoronic, but Ansanelli somehow manages to make every minute matter, particularly when it comes to pro bono work. In 2018, she was honored with a Legal Aid Society Pro Bono Publico Award and a Proskauer Golden Gavel Award for an amicus brief she helped prepare in support of a class of thousands of immigrant children and teens that had been denied special immigrant juvenile status in New York, based on a then-new United States Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) policy. The Southern District of New York court judge ultimately ruled that the policy violated federal immigration law. “My mom came to this country from the Dominican Republic,” says Ansanelli, a Spanish speaker that helps translate for her clients, “so it’s especially rewarding to get to help families like my own.”

Recently, she won the right for a 16-year-old girl (now 23) who fled gang violence in Honduras to remain in this country. “I love my corporate work, but I balance it with helping people who are powerless,” she explains. “It often can be lifesaving for them and endlessly gratifying to me.”

This alumni profile originally appeared in Touro's LINKS Fall 2024 Magazine, which features each of the graduate schools of Touro Univeristy. You can read the entire magazine by clicking here.