Alisa Tiwari
202.888.1741 | 2001 K St. NW, Suite 850 North, Washington, DC 20006
Alisa Tiwari is an associate at Gupta Wessler LLP, where she focuses on cutting-edge public interest and plaintiffs’-side appellate litigation. She joined the firm as a Fellow in Appellate and Constitutional Litigation following her clerkships with Judge Michelle Friedland on the Ninth Circuit and Judge Vince Chhabria on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. While at Gupta Wessler, Alisa has represented clients before federal and state appellate courts on a range of legal issues, such as police misconduct, administrative law, and forced arbitration. She is currently lead counsel in a Fair Credit Reporting Act appeal in the Second Circuit, and in a personal jurisdiction appeal in the Seventh Circuit. In the U.S. Supreme Court, Alisa has drafted both petition- and merits-stage briefs, including an amicus brief and two successful briefs in opposition.
Alisa has also represented and advocated for public-interest organizations. For instance, working for the Environmental Defense Fund, Alisa urged EPA to retain primary enforcement authority over Louisiana’s carbon-capture wells. In a memorandum and in meetings with the agency, she explained why the state’s liability release for well owners and operators was inconsistent with federal standards for granting primacy. In response this advocacy, Louisiana lawmakers overhauled the liability release.
Alisa has a longstanding interest in civil rights issues. At Yale Law School, she worked on affirmative litigation with the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, where she designed an APA lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s rescission of civil-rights guidance documents; on pro bono Supreme Court and appellate litigation with Neal Katyal of Hogan Lovells; and on criminal law reform litigation at the ACLU’s National Office. In addition, she published a Note in the Yale Law Journal detailing a way to hold police departments accountable for disproportionate racial effects. Before law school, she prepared policy analyses for Vanita Gupta, then-head of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, and served on the Division’s team investigating the Baltimore Police Department. She also worked in Civil Rights Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to investigate civil rights violations in a large state prison.
