Brooke Menschel is a Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward.

Brooke joined Democracy Forward from Brooklyn Defender Services, where she served as the Director of Civil Rights and Law Reform. In that role, she worked to address systemic deficiencies in New York City’s Department of Correction and family, immigration, and criminal courts. Prior to joining BDS, Brooke litigated state and federal trial and appellate cases concerning children’s rights, juvenile justice, the criminal legal system, and mass incarceration in the Deep South at the Southern Poverty Law Center and in New York at the local affiliate of the ACLU.

Before going to law school, Brooke worked as a policy and legislative advocate on human and civil rights issues in Washington, D.C. for the American Jewish Committee, and as communications strategist at the Anti-Defamation League in Boston.

Brooke received her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and her B.A. from Tufts University. She is a member of the bar in Washington, D.C. and New York.