Sherrilyn Ifill is a lawyer, and expert on voting rights and judicial selection. Currently, she is a law professor at the University of Maryland Law School and also president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.Ifill began her legal career in a fellowship with the ACLU in New York. She then served as assistant counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, where she litigated Voting Rights Act cases. Her first book, "On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century," was published in 2008.Ifill was born and raised in Jamaica, Queens, New York. She received her B.A. from Vassar College and her J.D. from the New York University School of Law. She interned for Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. and at the United Nations Centre for Human Rights.