What this 24-year-old has in common with Barack Obama, 3 SCOTUS judges

For the first time in its 135-year history, the Harvard Law Review has named a California-born daughter of Mexican immigrants as its new president, elevating a Latina to the top of one of the country’s most prestigious law publications.

Priscila Coronado, a 24-year-old Harvard Law School student, wrote in an email to Reuters on Sunday that her experiences as a Mexican American have shaped her viewpoints and that she wants to “work hard to show how being a Latina is an important part of who I am.”

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President Barack Obama, who was named the Harvard Law Review’s first Black president in 1990, is among the legal and political giants who have worked there. Previous editors also include three current members of the United States Supreme Court.

Coronado was elected president on Saturday, a year after the review panel chose Hassaan Shahawy to be the first Muslim president. He described Coronado as a “rigorous scholar and a passionate advocate” in a statement.

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“Hassaan’s intellectual prowess and humility are unmatched. He was given the unenviable task of guiding the Review through an unpredictable and challenging year, but he served Volumes 135 and 136 with grace. I will do my best to follow in his footsteps and build on the work he did this year,” said Coronado.

Law reviews are staffed by the best law students in the United States, who are frequently recruited for judicial clerkships and other important positions in the field.

Coronado was born and reared in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey. She is the first in her family to attend college and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree.

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Education law and disability rights are two of her legal interests. She intends to work as a summer associate at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson when the academic year ends.

On Twitter, Andrew Crespo, a Harvard law professor who was the review’s first Hispanic president as a student in 2007, thanked Coronado in Spanish, writing: “Felicidades, Priscila!”

Susan Estrich, the review’s first female president, was elected in 1977. In 2011, it elected its first openly gay president, and in 2017, it appointed the first Black woman to the position.

The Law Review is an entirely student-edited journal with the greatest circulation of any law journal in the world, created in 1887 by future Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. From November to June, it is released once a month.