Ikram Ally ’14 is a native of Miami, Florida. He previously attended the University of Florida on a full-tuition scholarship and graduated with a double major in Psychology and Anthropology. Mr. Ally went on to obtain a Masters degree in Public Anthropology with a concentration in Race, Gender, and Social Justice from American University. As a graduate student, Mr. Ally presented research on prison privatization and ethnographic storytelling at two nationally recognized academic conferences.
Mr. Ally is currently a student and aspiring public defender at Temple University Beasley School of Law. He was the unanimous winner of the 36th annual Samuel Polsky Moot Court Competition and recently represented Temple Law School in the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition. In addition to his appellate advocacy experience, Mr. Ally is involved with the Black Law Students Association and the National Lawyers Guild. He is a recipient of the Conwell, McCool, and Samuel Polsky scholarships. In the past two years, Mr. Ally has been inducted into the Equal Justice Works Summer Corps for his commitment to public interest law.
Following his first year of law school, Mr. Ally was selected to participate in the Judicial Resources Committee and Just the Beginning Foundation’s Summer Judicial Internship Diversity Project as a judicial intern to the Honorable Karen Wells Roby of the Eastern District of Louisiana. He concurrently volunteered with the Louisiana State Bar Association, where he trained a team of high school students to write legal briefs and deliver oral arguments before a panel of three federal judges. During his second summer, Mr. Ally interned with the Bronx Defenders, which specializes in holistic indigent criminal defense. In his third year of law school, Mr. Ally was a clinical intern with the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where he provided direct representation to indigent clients under attorney supervision. As a 2013 Law & Public Policy Scholar, Mr. Ally worked as a summer law clerk with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia in its trial division. His research explores collateral consequences within the criminal justice system and ways to mitigate those consequences, particularly with cases that do not proceed to trial.
When not learning about the law, Mr. Ally enjoys playing chess and basketball.