Announcing the 2024 Keynote Presenters and Honorees! To register, or for more information about the Convention, visit nlg.org/convention.
Noura Erakat: Keynote Presenter
Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and Professor of Africana Studies and the Program of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current Events/Foreign Affairs. She is co-founding editor of Jadaliyya and an editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Noura is a co-founding board member of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival and a Board Member of Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights. In 2024, she served as the Co-Chair of an Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 to Israel, which submitted a report to the White House recommending suspending U.S. weapons transfers to Israel. She has served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the US House of Representatives, as Legal Advocate for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, and as national organizer of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Noura has also produced video documentaries, including “Gaza In Context” and “Black Palestinian Solidarity.” Her writings have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, Al Jazeera, and the Boston Review. She is a frequent commentator on CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, Fox News, the BBC, and NPR, among others. She has been awarded fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Brown University’s Center for Middle East Studies. In 2022, she was selected as a Freedom Fellow by the Marguerite Casey Foundation.
Jaribu Hill: Keynote Presenter
Jaribu Hill is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights. Hill is an author and an international spokesperson on Civil and Human Rights topics. Through her organization, Attorney Hill has provided legal representation and advocacy for hundreds of workers in the state. Her efforts have led to the adoption of “Zero Tolerance Against Hate” policies being implemented in workplaces across the state. Hill also won an important judgment against the Ku Klux Klan in Pelion, South Carolina and has assisted Mississippi Delta parents in their fight for school equity.
Palestine Legal: Law For The People Award
Founded in 2012, Palestine Legal is dedicated to protecting the civil and constitutional rights of people in the US who speak out for Palestinian freedom. As the only legal organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to supporting the movement for Palestinian rights, it follows movement lawyering principles to provide legal advice, Know Your Rights workshops, advocacy and litigation support to college students, grassroots activists and affected communities who stand for justice in Palestine, while building a network of attorneys around the country to support the movement.
Julie Hurwitz: Ernie and Bill Goodman Award
Julie Hurwitz is in private practice in Detroit, Michigan, a partner in the firm of Goodman Hurwitz & James, P.C., where she specializes in civil rights, police and government misconduct/§1983 litigation. She is an active member of the National Lawyers Guild, Jewish Voice for Peace and is on the boards of the NLG/Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice [Sugar Law Center] in Detroit, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR), and the Peoples Water Board. She has successfully tried several civil rights cases to verdicts in excess of $1 million, including police misconduct, prisoner rights, malicious prosecution, wrongful conviction, failure to protect and sexual harassment cases. She has been continuously selected as a “Michigan Super Lawyer” since 2006 and has also been nominated as a “Lawyer of Distinction.
Katie Yow: Karen Jo Koonan Legal Worker Award
Katie Yow is a part of queer, radical and anarchist movements in the US South, engaged in the collective work of legal support organizing and prisoner solidarity. She has worked with hundreds of people who are fighting charges, in prison, resisting grand juries, and organizing support for their friends and communities. Like so many of us, this work grew from supporting loved ones targeted by the state and facing repression herself. These experiences motivate her to accompany others with care as they navigate the criminal legal system, and to rally movement resources so that people know they are not alone.
Shivani Parikh: C.B. King Student Award
Shivani Parikh served as Fordham Law School’s National Lawyers Guild chapter’s 2L co-chair and then 3L advisor. She led their hosting of the International US-Cuba Normalization Conference in 2023 and her chapter’s involvement in the Law Students for Palestine (LSFP) national coalition. During her leadership, the chapter grew from an executive board of 4 students to a board of 9 students with an organized, mobilized general body of 75+. At the start of her last semester of law school, she founded the South Asian Legal Defense Fund. Shivani is currently a housing defense attorney at Queens Legal Services.
