In her role as Senior Staff Attorney, Karena is thrilled to continue serving both students and clients in need after spending her legal career in public interest and legal academia. Before joining the Perlmutter Center, she spent 10 years as a public defender in Brooklyn and then worked in post-conflict countries helping to train lawyers and set up public defense offices. For the past six years, Karena was a supervisor and appellate public defender and taught the Criminal Appellate Defender Clinic at NYU School of Law.