About Alyssa
Alyssa Barnard-Yanni built a legal path that crosses trial dockets, appellate benches and the Supreme Court. She graduated from Fordham University in 2012 with a B.A. in political science and French literature, then earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2015. Her academic record placed her on a route toward federal practice and judicial work.
She began her post-law school career at the trial court level, clerking for Judge Alison J. Nathan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2015. The next year she moved to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as a clerk to Judge Robert A. Katzmann. Those early clerkships gave her direct exposure to both factual development in the district courts and legal argument on appeal.
After the appellate clerkship, Barnard-Yanni joined Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP as a managing associate in 2017. She handled litigation matters there before taking a one-year return to the bench. In 2019 she served as a law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court of the United States. She returned to Orrick in 2020 as a managing associate, resuming her work in litigated matters across federal forums.
Her practice credentials reflect that path. She is a member of the New York State Bar since 2015 and joined the Washington State Bar in 2021. She is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Ninth Circuit and the Federal Circuit, and in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Those admissions allow her to appear in multiple federal venues and on appellate panels.
Colleagues and court records show that Barnard-Yanni has split her time between appellate work and federal litigation. Her experience combines district-court fact development, appellate briefing and the perspective gained from a Supreme Court clerkship. That mix informs how she approaches legal strategy and drafting in complex matters.
She practices at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where she serves as a managing associate handling matters in federal court and on appeal. Her current practice focuses on appellate and federal litigation matters.
