• Royce Fellowship
John
Snyder

Concentration 

History

Award Year 

1997

John will research the life of Bill Baird, a social reformer and controversial leader in the pro-choice movement since 1963. Snyder will draw on primary sources such as diaries, interviews, press clippings and documentaries to create a biography and history of Baird's role in the movement and the larger "rights revolution."

John is a graduate of Harvard Law School and is currently running his own commercial litigation firm in Midtown Manhattan, NY. John is the founder of the Harvard Law School Solo/Boutique Law Firm Network, a nationwide network of Harvard Law School graduates who have started their own law firms. John frequently writes and speaks about legal entrepreneurism, and has mentored numerous fellow lawyers seeking to leave large firms to start their own solo practices. He is the secretary of the Election Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and has testified before the New York State Senate regarding redistricting in New York State. John is also a member of the State Affairs Committee of Citizens’ Union, New York’s oldest “good government” organization, and has represented Citizens’ Union in successfully advocating the constitutionality of New York City’s campaign finance law. John has also worked as a volunteer lawyer for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in protecting voting rights in the state of Ohio. John represented 13 sexual assault advocacy organizations pro bono, as amici curiae, in proposing before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court a new rule of evidence for sexual assault cases, adopted in whole by the Court in 2008 in Commonwealth v. Murungu. His pro bono work also includes representation of numerous theatrical and arts organizations.