NYCLU Selects Molly Biklen for Next Legal Director 

NEW YORK CITY– Today, the New York Civil Liberties Union announced the selection of Molly Biklen to be the organization’s legal director. Biklen will lead the NYCLU’s litigation across a wide variety of cases to protect and advance the civil rights and liberties of New Yorkers. Joining the NYCLU in early 2020 as deputy legal director, Biklen has led landmark cases and has served as the NYCLU’s interim legal director since Christopher Dunn departed in December 2024.

“At a moment of unprecedented attacks on our rights and freedoms, we are lucky to have Molly Biklen leading  our fight in the courthouse,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “In her time at the NYCLU, Molly has won critical new protections for New Yorkers – from how the NYPD must respect the rights of protestors, to how state prisons must respect the rights of those who they are responsible to care for. She has also won the unbounded trust and respect of the NYCUL’s incredible team of litigators and colleagues across the board. As we continue to face down a reckless and lawless Trump regime, Molly is the diligent, dedicated, skilled, and principled leader we need.”

“The NYCLU has worked for decades to defend and advance the civil rights and civil liberties of New Yorkers,” said Molly Biklen, legal director at the NYCLU. “This work has been especially vital over the last year as we face unprecedented challenges to our rights, including due process, freedom of speech, and equality. I am grateful to be able to work with my colleagues to carry this work forward and continue to challenge unlawful action, seek government accountability, and support a more just and free New York.”

Under Biklen’s leadership, the NYCLU has responded urgently to threats posed by the second Trump administration, from representing Mahmoud Khalil as it sought to silence his advocacy, to taking on the administration’s cruel and lawless treatment of immigrants. Biklen has also led a number of the NYCLU’s important victories: securing a first-in-the-nation agreement that significantly overhauled how the New York Police Department (NYPD) polices protests; holding the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) accountable for illegally subjecting people to prolonged solitary confinement; ending New York’s policies of indiscriminately banning internet and social media access for people on parole required to register as sex offenders; and more.

Prior to joining the NYCLU, Molly was a trial attorney and counsel at the U.S. Department of Labor and a Skadden fellow and staff attorney at the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center. Biklen served as a law clerk to the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor, then on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Honorable Lewis A. Kaplan of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. She holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

The New York Civil Liberties Union advances civil rights and civil liberties so that all New Yorkers can live with dignity, liberty, justice, and equality. Founded in 1951 as the state affiliate of the national ACLU, we marshal an expert mix of litigation, policy advocacy, field organizing, and strategic communications. Informed by the insights of our communities and coalitions and powered by our supporters, we work across complex issues to create more justice and liberty for more people.

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