About

Jared Genser is the founder and president of Freedom Now, a non-profit organization that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide, and a partner in the government affairs group of DLA Piper LLP. In 2009, the National Law Journal selected him as one of its "40 Under 40: Washington's Rising Stars." His human rights clients have included former Czech Republic President Václav Havel, former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, and Nobel Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu, and Elie Wiesel. Freedom Now has freed prisoners from Burma, China, Egypt, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Genser was a 2006-2007 visiting fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy and a “Young Global Leader" of the World Economic Forum.

Genser's advocacy started when he was a law student in London, when he read about the case of James Mawdsley - a British national sentenced to 17 years in solitary confinement in Burma for spreading pro-democracy pamphlets. Genser worked with a wide range of sources, including the U.N., the U.S. congress, the international press, and numerous NGOs to secure Mawdsley's release. Having observed Mawdsley's emotional reunion with his family at a London airport after 416 days in solitary confinement, Genser was "hooked." Since then, he has used an innovative blend of legal, political, and public relations techniques to free political prisoners in places like Pakistan, Vietnam, and China - focusing especially on the personal and human stories of his clients.