Welcoming Our 2026 Pauli Murray Fellows

Every summer, the Pauli Murray Diversity Leadership Initiative brings talented, mission-driven law students into the work of public defense. This year, we are proud to welcome Nnamdi Nnajiofor and Mell Then as our 2026 fellows.

Nnamdi Nnajiofor grew up in Hamilton, New Jersey, and has spent the years since building toward a career in public defense with real intention. He studied political science at Rutgers University, earned a master's in public administration from George Washington University, and worked as a Human Resources Analyst at Maryland's Department of Budget and Management before starting law school at the University of Baltimore. Along the way, a college internship at the Trenton Public Defender's Office left a lasting mark, showing him up close how the criminal justice system falls disproportionately on Black men and communities. That experience, and the people he met through it, have stayed with him. This summer, Nnamdi joins the Baltimore City office as a 1L ready to dig in.

Mell Then came to public defense through a series of experiences that kept pointing her in the same direction. As a first-generation Dominican American, she grew up translating and advocating for her family, learning early what it means to navigate systems that were not built with you in mind. Her time in the Juvenile Division of the Hillsborough County Public Defender's Office showed her what client-centered representation looks like in practice, and it stuck. She has since interned with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Peace Corps, worked as a Digital Court Reporter, and spent time as a substitute teacher watching systemic inequities shape young lives. Now a second-year student at Howard University School of Law, Mell joins the Montgomery County office this summer.

The Pauli Murray Diversity Leadership Initiative is a partnership between APDM and OPD, supported by the Maryland State Bar Association. We are glad to have Nnamdi and Mell with us this summer and look forward to everything they will bring to this work.