Clara Spera

Clara Spera is Counsel at Hecker Fink LLP.  In addition to her teaching at Columbia Law School, Clara serves as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.  Previously, she was Senior Counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), where she helped lead the Abortion Access Legal Defense Fund, provided strategic advice on reproductive rights and health issues, and litigated reproductive rights cases.

Clara began her career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project where she brought several challenges to abortion restrictions in both federal and state courts. She was also a fellow with the Federal Defenders of New York and represented indigent defendants at all stages of criminal proceedings in federal court.

Clara is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Chicago. She clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.  Clara is a member of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition’s ERA Advisory Council, a group dedicated to passing an Equal Rights Amendment. She also serves on the Equal Justice Works Alumni Advisory Council.