Ava Ayers, JD

Ava Ayers is an assistant professor of law, and a past Director of the Government Law Center, at Albany Law School.
Before teaching, Ayers worked for nine years in the office of the New York Attorney General, where she was a Senior Assistant Solicitor General. She served both as a supervisor and as lead counsel in various high-profile cases involving immigration law, states’ rights, constitutional rights, environmental law, and other issues. Ayers graduated first in her class from Georgetown Law in 2005. She then clerked for the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for the Honorable Gerard Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ayers is the author of articles on immigration law, federalism, legal ethics, and other subjects, as well as the book A Student’s Guide to Law School, published by the University of Chicago Press. Before her gender transition in 2020, she was known as Andrew Ayers.