Blog

After 13 years of leading Benach Collopy with Ava Benach, Dree Collopy is moving on to a new challenge. Beginning this month, Dree will be focusing her time and energy on teaching the next generation of lawyers as a law professor and continuing her scholarship on U.S. asylum and refugee law and policy. This semester, Dree will continue to teach Asylum and Refugee Law at American University Washington College of Law and has joined the institution’s renowned Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

While it was a difficult decision for Dree to depart the firm she founded and ran, people seeking protection in the United States need skilled, zealous advocates and smart, creative legal arguments now, more than ever before. Given her 17 years of experience representing clients, her scholarship on refugee and asylum law and policy, and her dedicated leadership in the immigration field, Dree is uniquely positioned to inspire the next generation of immigrant rights advocates and equip them with the tools they need to succeed in our field, while continuing to advance immigrants’ rights through her scholarship. As she departs the firm she founded and ran, all of us at Benach Collopy are confident that her contributions to the rights of immigrants will yield dividends for our clients for decades to come.

Dree’s contributions to Benach Collopy are too many to count. Quite simply, this firm would not exist if it was not for her.  We would not have the bonds of friendship we share, the victories we have achieved, and the heartbreaks we have endured without her.  This place is what it is today because of her drive, dedication, kindness, and organizational capacity.  Dree’s presence and influence is embedded in our DNA and she will always have a home with us.

We will always remember what we learned from Dree- how she made us better lawyers, how she treated her clients with dignity and kindness, and how she kept the office running through horrifying administrations, a global pandemic, successive “border crises,” and family detention and separation. As Dree’s clients remain the firm’s clients, we are conscious of our duty to treat them all with the same level of excellence, care, dignity, and reliability that are Dree’s hallmarks.

In the next few weeks, the firm will re-brand itself and recognize the contributions of partners Sarah Pitney and Erica Reilly to the firm’s future. While there will be a new name and a snazzy new logo, the values that Benach Collopy lived by, so carefully crafted by Dree Collopy for over a decade, will remain the same: provide the best legal services we can while demonstrating genuine care and affection for our clients, colleagues, and communities.

If you would like to connect with Dree, you can email her at collopy@american.edu or contact her at 515-988-1044.

If you have a question for Benach Collopy, feel free to reach out to us at 202-644-8600.