Hilary Harris Klein joined Southern Coalition for Social Justice in 2020 and serves as Senior Counsel for the Voting Rights program. Her practice focuses on trial and appellate advocacy on behalf of voters and non-partisan voting rights organizations. Her recent matters involve voter registration list maintenance, ballot access, and anti-gerrymandering initiatives. She has led teams pursuing state and federal constitutional and statutory claims before federal and state trial and appellate courts, including arguments before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the North Carolina Supreme Court and serving as counsel of record for parties before the U.S. Supreme Court. She has also represented voters in election-related state and local administrative hearings.
Hilary’s notable cases include:
- Acting as lead counsel to obtain injunctive relief requiring a statewide ballot cure process in North Carolina under principles of due process and expanded assistance to voters with disabilities on behalf of voting-rights groups and individual voters (Democracy NC v. N.C. State. Bd. of Elections (M.D.N.C. 2020)).
- Leading the trial and appellate teams on behalf of voter rights organizations to achieve court-ordered, non-gerrymandered maps in North Carolina’s 2022 state legislative and congressional elections. (Harper v. Hall (N.C. 2022)).
- Appearing on brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the successful effort to defend the applicability of state constitutional protections to federal congressional redistricting in Moore v. Harper (2023).
- Opposing racial and discriminatory gerrymandering in Galveston, Texas, including leading a trial team to achieve a judgement finding the challenged county commissioners plan to be a “textbook case of racial gerrymandering.” (Petteway v. Galveston Co. (S.D. Tex. 2023)).
- Successfully petitioning for the removal of two county board of elections members who refused to certify election results on behalf of an individual voter. (Hall v. Forestieri and DeHaan (N.C. Bd. of Elect. 2023)).
- Representing individual, eligible voters challenged in an election protest as amicus curiae (Griffin v. Riggs (N.C. 2025)).
- Leading a trial team to oppose North Carolina’s state legislative and congressional plans at trial, and its 2025 mid-decade Congressional redraw in an emergency preliminary injunction hearing. (C. NAACP v. Berger (M.D.N.C. 2025)).
- Supporting a trial team in 26th Amendment claims opposing changes to same-day registration as unlawfully targeting young voters (M.D.N.C. 2025)).
Hilary also provides community-based legal and other advocacy support to grassroots coalition partners throughout the South, to prevent harm before there is a need for court action. Recent wins include:
- Successfully advocating for an end to prison gerrymandering in Granville, North Carolina (the home of the federal Butner facility) for the first time in known history.
- Representing a nonpartisan grassroots voter mobilization coalition facing false accusations of voter interference related to their voter advocacy and outreach work.
- Preventing discriminatory changes in the method of election for county commissioners in Bladen County, North Carolina.
- Successfully opposing the closure of an early voting site that predominantly serves disabled and Black and African American voters in Columbus County, North Carolina.
For her work in North Carolina, Hilary was a 2024 recipient of the Hometown Heroes award from Blueprint North Carolina. She has frequently appeared as a guest lecturer and keynote speaker in academic and organizational settings, in addition to appearances on PBS, the Legal Eagle Review Radio program, NC Newsline, and Capital Tonight programs among others.
Hilary graduated with honors from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a Global Law Scholar and Pro Bono Pledge Recognition recipient. After law school, Hilary practiced commercial litigation, arbitration, and global investigations in the New York office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where she co-led the US Pro-Bono Associate Counsel and served as lead counsel in Prisoner’s Rights and Anti-Human Trafficking matters, for which she twice received the Legal Aid Society’s Pro Bono Public Award.
After moving to North Carolina in 2018, Hilary served as a term law clerk for the Honorable Catherine C. Eagles of the Middle District of North Carolina. Hilary also holds a B.S.E., magna cum laude, in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and served for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania before law school.