Agnieszka Fryszman, 2025-2026 Drinan Chair

Agnieszka Fryszman, L’96, one of the nation’s preeminent human rights litigators and founder of the Human Rights practice at Cohen Milstein, has been appointed the 2025-2026 Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights.

Her groundbreaking victories include securing billions in compensation for Holocaust survivors from German and Austrian companies, ands exposing Swiss banks’ role in laundering assets during the Nazi era. Most recently, Fryszman and her team at Cohen Milstein secured a landmark settlement from ExxonMobil for Indonesian villagers who alleged that soldiers retained to protect the company’s facilities in Aceh had tortured, raped or killed local residents.

Fryszman also filed one of the earliest civil suits under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and won the first successful U.S. judgment for men enslaved aboard fishing vessels, shining a global spotlight on abuses in the seafood supply chain. She has represented Nepali laborers trafficked onto U.S. military bases in Iraq, survivors of the Japanese military’s World War II-era sexual slavery system (“comfort women”) and former detainees seeking redress for abuse at Guantánamo Bay.

Her achievements have earned wide recognition, including the National Law Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Public Justice’s Trial Lawyer of the Year, Human Trafficking Advocate of the Year from the Human Trafficking Legal Center, recognition as a Lawdragon Legend, and inclusion in Forbes’s “50 Over 50” list of changemakers improving the world.

“I am excited to return to Georgetown Law where, as a night student, I was fortunate to take Father Drinan’s class,” said Fryszman. “He was a wonderful teacher and a great storyteller, and had an inspirational career fighting for human rights. Father Drinan became my faculty mentor, so it’s a huge honor to have the opportunity to carry on his legacy and help equip the next generation of lawyers to tackle the challenges ahead.”

As Drinan Chair, Fryszman will teach a course in the spring semester on human rights litigation in United States courts. She will deliver the annual Drinan Lecture on Human Rights on Thursday, November 13, 2025.