Yenisey Rodriguez

Senior Counsel

Yenisey (yeh-nee-SAY) Rodriguez is Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward.

Prior to joining Democracy Forward, Yenisey served most recently as Senior Counsel and manager of the Achieving-Racially Equitable Communities project at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund (LDF), where she led interdisciplinary teams comprised of litigators, organizers, communication strategists, and local stakeholders in the areas of economic justice and political participation. At LDF, she advocated for federal and state policies to affirmatively further fair housing, worked to empower disenfranchised voters in Mississippi, challenged state takeovers of progressive cities in the deep South, and lobbied to secure equal access to credit for historically marginalized communities across the country.

Prior to her work at LDF, Yenisey served as a senior trial attorney in the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, where she investigated, litigated, and settled fair housing and fair lending matters across the country. This work included efforts to end the alleged sexual abuse and harassment of unaccompanied children living in federally funded residential shelters and challenge lending discrimination against Black and American Indian/Alaska Native graduates seeking to refinance their student loans.

Yenisey also has criminal law experience. Serving as a trial attorney for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, she defended indigent individuals charged with the most serious crimes, including homicide and armed robbery. As a public defender, Yenisey litigated complex pre-trial issues such as privilege, forensic science, and Brady violations, and prepared experts to testify. She began her legal career in private practice where she litigated complex civil cases.

Yenisey served as a law clerk for the Honorable Nelson S. Román in the Southern District of New York. She attended Yale Law School, Yale Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and the University of Chicago. Her greatest privilege is serving as the mom of two fierce little girls.