about
Jessica Park Wright is a writer and litigator based in Brooklyn. Prior to returning to New York City several years ago, she lived and worked in Kabul where she specialized in Afghanistan-related legal matters and collaborated with NATO and the Office of the President of Afghanistan on rule of law initiatives. She is currently an associate at DLA Piper where she focuses on complex commercial litigation and international human rights.
Jess studied international relations theory and political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and remains interested in research within those fields, as well as issues at the intersection of law and religion. During law school, Jess worked at NATO’s military command center (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe or SHAPE), where she focused on laws of war and rules of engagement with member nation representatives. While there, and with the assistance of senior NATO Legal Advisors, she conducted research on humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect in the context of the Syrian civil war. Stateside, she has worked for public policy think tanks in Washington D.C. Jess works with the International Refugee Assistance Program on pro bono cases involving Afghan and Iraqi refugees, and represents criminal defendants with partners at her firm who are members of the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Finally, Jess writes essays—personal, political, and otherwise—and often chronicles her travels and experiences. Recently, she started writing The Paris Letters, a series of essays published once a month.