Clara Presler

Clara Presler joined Loevy + Loevy in January 2026. From 2022 to 2025, Clara served as Chief Counsel to the Office of Pro Se Litigation at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. At the SDNY, she ran an office responsible for all pre-service matters in cases filed by plaintiffs without lawyers, many of whom were incarcerated and seeking to bring civil rights claims related to the circumstances of their arrest, treatment while incarcerated, or the constitutionality of their conviction or sentence. As Chief Counsel, she also ran the SDNY’s pro bono program, connecting individuals without lawyers heading for active litigation with attorneys in the SDNY bar.

From 2013 to 2022, Clara was a public defender and supervisor in the Family Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders. She represented parents accused of abuse and neglect of their children in all stages of litigation, from emergency hearings to trials and appeals. While at the Bronx Defenders, she developed a training program for medical residents at local hospitals about the cross-practice implications of mandated reporting of suspected child maltreatment.

Clara graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2012. From 2012 to 2013, Clara clerked in the Southern District of New York for the Honorable Sarah Netburn. Before becoming a lawyer, she worked in the field of international human rights in New York City and Delhi, India.

Bar Admissions
New York
Illinois (pending)
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

Publications

Mutual Deference Between Hospitals and Courts: How Mandated Reporting from Medical Providers Harms Families. Columbia Journal of Race and Law, 11(3), 733–766 (2021)