Profile
Giselle Valdez is a law student at Columbia Law School and is from San Diego, California. She graduated from Columbia College in 2020 with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature. At the Holder Initiative, she was an Intern and Chair of the Student Advisory Board. During her time at Columbia College, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Columbia Undergraduate Law Review and a member of Kappa Alpha Theta.
Following her undergraduate education, Giselle earned a Master’s in the Social Science of the Internet at the University of Oxford as Columbia University’s Doctorow Fellow. During this program, she developed her passion for the intersection of technology, politics, and law. At Columbia Law School, Giselle is the Communications Chair of the Latinx Law Students Association, a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) Moot Court Team, and assists in the Lawyering in the Digital Age Clinic. In addition, she was an SEO Law Fellow at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York City and a 1L Diversity Fellow at Cooley LLP in San Diego.
As a Latina law student, Giselle founded @TheLegalGist during her law school application process when she realized the need for increased transparency and accessibility within the legal profession. This social media community and podcast shares affordable pre-law resources, programs, and stories of diverse legal leaders with thousands of underrepresented pre-law students. The platform was awarded the selective Davis Polk Leadership Initiative, Innovation Grant. Giselle cares deeply about diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and looks forward to utilizing online platforms to build a diverse, vibrant community of aspiring lawyers. She enjoys going to art museums, listening to music, and watching sports.