Lily came to the legal field, and to NARF, with a wealth of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) knowledge and experience. Before law school, she worked in institutions like the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Los Alamos National Laboratory, specializing in instrumentation to measure snow, permafrost, and other water cycles processes. Today, that background informs and complements her work at NARF on Tribal water rights and protecting subsistence resources in Alaska’s rivers and oceans.

Inspired by her scientific work with water cycles, Lily returned to law school where she clerked for the Earthjustice, Alaska office, and the Environmental Protection Division at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. After law school, Lily clerked for the Honorable Josie Garton on the Alaska Superior Court. She also spent a year working for the Alaska Native Justice Center, where she argued a case on behalf of a Tribe in front of the Alaska Supreme Court, defending the Tribe’s inherent authority to make decisions about the safety of its children. During that time, she also worked with Tribal courts and represented victims and survivors of domestic violence.

When she is not at NARF fighting for justice, Lily volunteers as a bicycle mechanic at the Anchorage community bicycle collective and maintains a publicly accessible salary database for the University of Alaska system in an effort to promote pay transparency and pay equality.

Education

• Harvard Law School, J.D.
  • Immigration and Refugee Clinic
  • Veterans Law Clinic
  • Treasurer, Harvard Environmental Law Society
  • Harvard Mediation Project
• Brown University, B.S. Geology-Biology

Admissions to Practice

• Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
• United States District Courts for Alaska
• State courts of Alaska

Publications

• Lily Cohen, The Role of Environmental Law in Addressing the Violent Effects of Resource Extraction on Native women, 47 Harv. Env’t L. Rev. 275 (2023).
• Lily Cohen, Offshore Wind Energy and the Potential of State-Led Development, 46 Harv. Env’t L. Rev. 70 (2022).
• Cohen, Lily R., Naama Raz‐Yaseef, J. Bryan Curtis, Jessica M. Young, Thom A. Rahn, Cathy J. Wilson, Stan D. Wullschleger, and Brent D. Newman. “Measuring diurnal cycles of evapotranspiration in the Arctic with an automated chamber system.” Ecohydrology 8, no. 4 (2015): 652-659.