Emily Lopynski is part of the Immigrant Justice Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center. She represents immigrants before immigration agencies and in federal courts. She also co-leads state policy work for her team and supports community organizing initiatives. Before Legal Aid Justice Center, she clerked for the Virginia Court of Appeals and the Arlington Circuit Court. In law school, Emily represented immigrant youth in state court and conducted pro bono legal intakes at the immigration detention center in Farmville, Virginia. Emily was recognized with the Oliver White Hill Law Student Pro Bono Award and the Nina R. Kestin Service Award in 2020. Before law school, Emily established an immigration legal assistance program at a nonprofit in El Paso, Texas. Emily is a graduate of the College of William & Mary and the University of Richmond School of Law.

Emily is the author of "Reflections on the Criminalization of Asylum Seekers" (publication forthcoming Fall 2025), “Restorative Lawyering: A Toolbox That Will Change the Profession” (University of Richmond Law Review, Online, January 2021), and coauthor of “Reckoning with Structural Racism: A Restorative Jurisprudence of Equal Protection” (Richmond Public Interest Law Review, Symposium Edition 2020).