Public Interest Monday: Direct Civil Legal Services

Joy Ziegeweid '12

Urban Justice Center Domestic Violence Project

Joy Ziegeweid is the Director of Immigration Legal Services at the Domestic Violence Project of the Urban Justice Center. She leads her team in providing legal representation to survivors of intimate partner violence in a wide variety of humanitarian remedies, including Violence Against Women Act self-petitions, Battered Spouse Waivers, U nonimmigrant status petitions, T nonimmigrant status petitions, asylum,

Special Immigrant Juvenile Status petitions, and related matters in front of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Executive Office of Immigration Review. 

Prior to joining DVP, Joy was a staff attorney at Sanctuary for Families’ Immigration Intervention Project, where she began her career as a Skadden Fellow. Ms. Ziegeweid frequently trains on immigration legal remedies for vulnerable populations. She is active in local and national immigration advocacy and is vice chair of the VAWA,U,T committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Joy previously served as a Senior Visiting Fellow at Immigrant ARC where she participated in advocacy and pro bono efforts to address immigration legal needs of Ukrainians. She is a graduate of Macalester College, the University of Michigan, and Columbia Law School and is admitted to practice in New York State.

Hasan Shafiqullah

Specialist Career Adviser

Columbia Law School Office of Public Interest/Public Service

From July 2017 to November 2022, Hasan Shafiqullah was the attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society’s Immigration Law Unit, one of the largest nonprofit immigration practices in the country. For the past 26 years, he has represented clients in a range of civil legal services matters, initially in a mix of housing eviction defense, family law, name changes, credit issues, wills and trusts, tax, and related matters, and since 2009 in immigration law. Hasan was part of the Legal Aid Society’s litigation teams challenging the Trump Administration’s public charge rules in Make the Road New York v. Cuccinelli, 19 Civ. 7993 (S.D.N.Y.) and Make the Road New York v. Pompeo, 19 Civ. 11633 (S.D.N.Y) (regarding the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State’s public charge rules, respectively), and challenging the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s practice of arresting noncitizens appearing in and around New York State criminal, housing, and family courts, in Doe v. ICE, 19 Civ. 8892 (S.D.N.Y.). He is a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Immigration Representation and the New York City Bar Association’s Immigration and Nationality Law Committee, is past a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, and is a current adjunct professor of immigration law at Cardozo School of Law.

Hasan is a graduate of the University of California Hastings College of the Law and of the University of Arizona and holds a certificate in French to English legal translation from New York University.

Thalia Julme '10

Family Defense Practice

Thalia Julme joined the Family Defense Practice in July 2019 as a Supervising Attorney.

Thalia graduated from Brown University in 2007 concentrating on Biomedical Ethics and Sociology. She graduated from Columbia Law School in 2010. While in law school she externed at the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and interned at Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff, and Abady and MFY Legal Services. Since law school, she has served as a fellow at the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, a Tax and Policy researcher at Solutions for Progress, a Staff Attorney in the Family Defense Practice from 2012-2016, and a Senior Staff Attorney in the Special Litigation Unit at the New York Legal Assistance Group where she helped file Josefina S. a federal class action lawsuit alleging the City of New York discriminates against ACS involved parents with intellectual disabilities. As a native New Yorker, Thalia is thrilled to be part of an organization that fights to protect the families of Brooklyn from government intervention. 

Chris Helwig '17

Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem

Chris Helwig is a 2017 graduate of Columbia Law School. Immediately after graduating, he completed a two-year Equal Justice Works fellowship at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. As a fellow, Chris litigated and tried cases in New York City Housing Court, primarily on behalf of high-need tenants living in public housing. During his fellowship, he designed and implemented a number of pro bono projects, including the Harlem Community Justice Center's Attorney for the Day Program. After the conclusion of his fellowship, Chris began a clerkship in the Eastern District of New York for the Honorable William F. Kuntz, II. He is now the managing attorney of the housing defense team at Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem in their civil defense practice.