Lyla Wasz-Piper

Lyla Wasz-Piper is an attorney with Loevy + Loevy and The Exoneration Project, where she represents people who have been wrongfully convicted and incarcerated, and those whose civil rights have been violated. Lyla’s work centers on helping free innocent people from prison and then demanding accountability from the parties who caused those wrongful convictions. In addition to her civil litigation, she has helped win freedom for multiple clients and secured certificates of innocence on behalf of exonerees.

Before joining the firm, Lyla clerked for the Honorable Edmond Chang on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, as well as the Honorable John Z. Lee on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She began her career as the 2020–2021 Edith Fine Fellow at First Defense Legal Aid, where she litigated civil rights cases.

Lyla earned her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she led the Prison Legal Assistance Project and was a technical editor for the Journal on Legislation. As a student attorney with the Criminal Justice Institute, she won her first criminal trial, obtaining an acquittal for her client just minutes after closing arguments finished. During her time in the Harvard Crimmigration Clinic she co-authored an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit and advocated for a client’s bond who was later granted asylum. She was named a Harvard Presidential Scholar and received the Clinical Legal Education Association’s 2020 Outstanding Clinical Team Award for her trial skills. A Louisville, Kentucky native, she graduated with honors from Harvard College in 2015.

Lyla has spoken publicly about police misconduct and wrongful convictions on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, NBC Chicago, and Local News Live, among others.