As a 2022-2024 Borchard Fellow, Valerie Snow is honored to expand on and deepen her legal expertise in adult guardianship matters. Valerie joined SeniorLAW Center in October 2020 as an Independence Foundation Public Interest Law Fellow, where she launched the Access to Justice in Guardianship Project. Valerie represents older adults facing or under guardianship in Philadelphia, an issue implicating the deprivation of fundamental rights and self-determination. Through the SeniorLAW Helpline, she also provides legal information, advice, and referrals on adult guardianship and related matters to older adults throughout Pennsylvania. To effect broader change, Valerie engages in policy advocacy to advance adult guardianship reform and participates in education and outreach initiatives for professionals and the public, with a particular focus on less-restrictive alternatives to guardianship.
Valerie graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in May 2020, where she was a Toll Public Interest Fellow. During law school, Valerie’s most rewarding experiences included volunteering with asylum seekers in Texas, working with Community Legal Services and SeniorLAW Center in Philadelphia, and assisting clients in two clinical legal education courses in family and civil law. In addition, Valerie served as co-chair of the Criminal Record Expungement Project and as Production Editor of the Journal of Law and Social Change. In recognition of pro bono service as a law student, Valerie received awards from both the law school and the Philadelphia Bar Association, where she served as a student liaison to the Young Lawyers’ Division.
Prior to law school, Valerie worked as a paralegal in small law firms, focusing on class action human rights litigation and immigration law, and volunteered at the ACLU of Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Haverford College with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa distinctions. Valerie’s work is dedicated to her late father, James T. Snow, whose later years were affected by a rare form of dementia.
