Irene Lax is senior counsel at Grant & Eisenhofer, focusing her practice on civil rights litigation. Ms. Lax is a vigorous advocate for survivors of sexual assault and victims of discrimination, wrongful incarceration, and other forms of harassment. Ms. Lax also litigates Title IX sexual assault actions and matters related to federal detention reform. Her current representations include:
- Soenen et al. v. Brown University (D. R.I.), a proposed class action on behalf of current and former Brown students, alleging Title IX and other violations resulting from the University’s systemic failure to adequately respond to and prevent incidents of sexual harassement and assault on campus.
- Romero-Garcia v. CoreCivic, Inc. (M.D. Ga.), a wrongful death action also alleging Section 504 and other state law related claims against CoreCivic, Inc. for its role in the death of Efrain Romero de la Rosa, a 38-year-old man who lived with acute schizophrenia and died by suicide while detained in solitary confinement at Stewart Detention Center as a means to control his mental illness. Efrain’s suicide was the second death by suicide of a mentally-ill detainee at this facility in just over one year.
- Aguirre-Jarquin v. Hemmert et al. (M.D. Fla.), an action alleging Section 1983 and related claims against defendants relating to the investigation leading to plaintiff’s death row sentence and 14 years of wrongful incarceration for two murders that he did not commit.
- Youngers v. LaSalle Corrections Transport LLC, et al. (D.N.M.), a wrongful death action also alleging violations of Section 504 and other state law claims against the United States of America and its government contractors for their role in the death of Roxsana Hernandez, a transgender Honduran asylum-seeker who died while in ICE custody.
Ms. Lax was previously in-house counsel at a real estate company in New York City assisting with litigation and transactional legal business matters. She also worked as an associate at a well-known Philadelphia-area law firm, where she assisted clients in civil litigation brought under federal and state securities laws, as well as federal antitrust laws. Upon graduating from law school, Ms. Lax served as law clerk for the Honorable Carolyn Berger, Supreme Court of the State of Delaware, from 2012-2013.
Ms. Lax earned her J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2012 where she was an Editor of the Temple Law Review and President of the Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court team. Ms. Lax received a joint honors B.A. in political science and international development studies from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec in 2009.
In September 2022, Ms. Lax co-authored “Failure on Campus—Litigating Title IX,” published in Trial magazine. Ms. Lax has also co-authored several publications relating to Delaware law and securities litigation. For the past two years, Ms. Lax was selected for inclusion to Super Lawyers’ list of Rising Stars for Civil Rights Litigation, New York Metro region.