Kiran is PLAP’s Internal Community Director for 2025-26 and is one of the PLAP Executive Directors for the 2026-27 year. She is a member of the JD class of 2027.

I joined PLAP in the spring of my 1L year. I had joined Harvard Defenders in my first semester and my team lead Maddie Stuzin (one of PLAP’s Parole Directors for 2025-26) and colleague Katrina Weinert (one of PLAP’s Disciplinary Hearing Directors for 2025-26) encouraged me to join PLAP for the opportunity to work on parole cases and get to develop a longer-term relationship with our clients. Since then, I have worked on two parole cases, half a dozen disciplinary tickets, and am currently working on my first commutation case. Though each of these types of cases are incredibly different, there are a lot of similarities – our clients live very tightly regulated lives under the near complete control of the Department of Corrections and their days are characterized both by very rigid routine and outsized unpredictability. Time in prison passes both very slowly and very quickly. Every time I go to prison to visit a client, I feel like it completely changes me even though I have done it dozens of times.

When you are accused of breaking a rule in prison, you are not entitled to any representation. The person deciding your case will be a colleague and friend of the person who is accusing you of breaking the rule in the first place since the disciplinary officer in charge of managing the case and facilitating our access to evidence, the reporting officer prosecuting the case, and the hearing officer adjudicating the case are all coworkers employed by the the Department of Corrections, the institution incarcerating our clients in the first place. The agency prosecuting you also has complete control over the evidence collected, the investigation done into the matter, and how much of that information they choose to share with you – that is, if you even know exactly how to request it in the first place. When it comes to parole cases and commutations, the odds can feel even steeper since it could take years for your case to even be chosen for review. Once you have the chance to make your case, you are being graded on a rubric you will never see by people who have never been in your shoes.

Despite these incredibly challenging circumstances, PLAP student attorneys and our clients actually win their cases all the time! As PLAP’s Community Director, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about what is going on within the organization when interviewing a PLAP member every week for our “PLAPper of the Week” feature series and I am constantly impressed by everyone’s creativity and determination. PLAP members view hundreds of hours of video footage, comb through hundreds of pages of confusing and contradictory case files, get dozens of letters of support from our clients’ community members who can support their release, spend dozens of hours driving to and from various prisons, and so much more. Our clients are amazing self-advocates but having the support of someone who the DOC treats as a third party worthy of respect can often make a real difference in the outcome of a case.

But for most people in PLAP, the central part of their PLAP experience is not driving to prisons to visit their clients, drafting discovery requests, or reviewing evidence but answering PLAP’s phones during our weekly office hours. Here, we conduct intakes for our cases, fulfill research requests for callers inside prison, answer callers’ questions about other legal resources they can avail of, and share with them information about their rights. Each shift is staffed by 5–10 PLAP members, many of whom would never have met if not for being randomly assigned to the same office hours shift. In my first semester of PLAP, my office hours shift-mates helped me pick classes, choose clinics, navigate the social complexities of law school, apply to summer jobs, find the best food near campus, and so much more in between answering client calls. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by people who are so passionate about the same type of work as I am and who will do anything to help their clients.