A woman with brown hair to her shoulders, swept over her left shoulder, with brown glasses and blue/green eyes smiles at the camera in front of a blue wall with a pink sweater on.

Title/Position

Senior Staff Attorney

Department

Legal Department

E-mail address

Pronouns

she, her

Elana Bildner joined the ACLU of Connecticut in 2019 and advances the organization's mission through litigation. Elana has spent significant time advocating and litigating for the rights of immigrants, people who are or were incarcerated, and families. Most recently, Elana was a senior clinical fellow with the Civil Justice Clinic at Quinnipiac University School of Law. There, she focused on ending long prison sentences imposed on children. She also guided law students representing young adults in parole hearings and in civil rights lawsuits challenging prison mistreatment. Prior to her time at Quinnipiac, Elana spent six years as a civil litigator at large law firms in New York and Connecticut. Elana received her law degree from Columbia Law School, where she was a teaching assistant, Harlan Fiske Stone scholar, and an executive editor of the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual. Before her legal career, Elana worked with anti-poverty organizations in New York through an AmeriCorps fellowship.