Elena Kuran
Legal Designer
Hi & welcome back, etc. etc.!
One of the great joys of writing this newsletter/doing this podcast is marveling at how wonderful our friends are and how lucky we are that we get to meet new remarkable and talented people through them!
Our guest today Elena is no exception, and is in fact the rule: fitting, because *very* soon it will be her job to be a professional rule designer and enforcer, so to speak!
“Law is just one tool that we have in our creative toolbox. I chose law because, despite being an abolitionist, it seems to be an incoherent position. I recognize that sometimes the law is the only tool in our toolbox that can keep someone out of jail right now, keep someone from being deported, keep someone with their family, or keep someone from being evicted [. . .] I think it's important that we approach law as immediate harm reduction while tied to a broader vision of social and political change.”
Elena, who I got to know through our previous guest and dear friend Will Harvey, is at the tail end of her time as a law student. But she is no ordinary baby lawyer, she also happens to be a wonderful thinker and designer, and we have had the absolute privilege of bringing Elena into the AUSKLEIDEN universe twofold this month! In addition to this fabulous conversation we had that you are either listening to now or are about to, Elena also contributed a thoughtful legal paper to our upcoming issue of the magazine (which came out just a few weeks ago)! I won’t spoil the details if you haven’t read it yet, but suffice to say that her contribution was a significant and exciting component of us taking this issue in a different direction;we could not be more excited about that and to have hosted Elena’s writing!
During our conversation, Elena and I took a slightly different approach to AWC’s usual interview structure and got into the weeds about the importance of integrating creative thinking and practice into areas that seem completely divorced from the basis of creativity, such as law.
“The creative endeavor is how well can you translate your moral and ethical convictions, your own law into language that a court is going to recognize. To me, that feels very creative; it's almost a challenge.”
While Elena is a brilliant legal thinker who uses her background in design to an exceptional degree in her legal practice, she also happens to be devastatingly cool. Starting with her personal style and uniform of sorts: black long-sleeve shirt topped with her brown-and-black Gap hoodie, black long bubble skirt, and her Camper Pelotas sneakers.
Extending to her essentials:
2-3 cups of light roast coffee, daily
Apple corded headphones
Notes app
Forever 21 compact with a French bulldog wearing a polka dot bow tie that she’s had since middle school
A book, usually for her book club
Find Elena’s piece in our most recent issue here and see her supplemental presentation here, and enjoy a tiny slice of her brilliance.
