Ellora Thadaney Israni is an Attorney at Relman Colfax. Ellora joined the firm in 2024. Her civil rights litigation practice focuses on challenging various forms of racial and economic injustice, with a focus on criminal legal system-involved individuals.
Prior to joining the firm, Ellora was an attorney at Civil Rights Corps in Washington, D.C., where she litigated cases challenging systemic injustices in the criminal legal system in federal and state courts around the country. Her matters included challenges to a novel pretrial detention system in Maryland, wealth-based jailing in Oregon and Tennessee, and police violence in the District of Columbia. She also authored amicus briefs arguing against policies that discriminate against Black, brown, and poor people, such as debt-based driver’s license suspensions. Ellora worked closely with community partners to develop multi-pronged advocacy strategies that used litigation as a tool to shift power to community-led movements. Prior to her work at Civil Rights Corps, Ellora clerked on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Ellora graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School. During law school, Ellora served as a Student Attorney at the Criminal Justice Institute, representing indigent persons charged with crimes in Boston, and as the Managing Editor of the Harvard Law Review, where she supervised the production of a special issue on prison abolition.
