Kim Sweet

Kim Sweet is a Senior Advisor and Lecturer in Law with the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia Law School.  She teaches and advises students in the Center’s Graduate Training Program and supports the Center’s research and policy projects with strategy and implementation. Kim brings to this role nearly three decades of experience in education law and advocacy, including building coalitions and alliances that have spurred systemic change. 

Prior to working with CPRL, Kim served for 18 years as the Executive Director of the non-profit education advocacy organization Advocates for Children of New York, where she was responsible for development of resources, relationships, and organizational strategy as well as management of finances, personnel, and programs directly serving approximately 11,000 parents, students, and professionals each year.  Before joining Advocates for Children, she led the special education practice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and conducted litigation and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities. She also taught as an Adjunct Professor in the Special Education Clinic at New York Law School and was a litigation associate at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler LLP.

Kim holds a B.A. in Psychology from Brown University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and a member of the Columbia Law Review. She clerked for the Honorable Robert P. Patterson, Jr., U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York.