Laura Petty

Laura Petty is a Law Fellow and Staff Attorney at Advancement Project’s Opportunity to Learn team. Prior to joining Advancement Project, Laura was a law clerk for Magistrate Judge James L. Cott in the Southern District of New York and a law fellow at the National Education Association’s Office of General Counsel. Laura graduated from Fordham Law School in 2021, where she was Senior Articles Editor of the Fordham Urban Law Journal.

Laura has dedicated her life and career to racial justice in the education system. Before law school, she was a 2012 City Year corps member in Washington, DC, and then taught tenth grade English in Indianola, Mississippi for three years. She earned a master’s degree in Education Policy from Teachers College, Columbia University.

During law school, Laura interned at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The NYCLU’s Education Policy Center, the Century Foundation, The Legal Aid Society’s Education Advocacy Project, and The Center for Educational Equity. Laura also served as the Feerick Center for Social Justice’s Amanda Rose Laura Education Fellow, where her research focused on the discriminatory impacts of New York City’s city-wide public school application process.