Anastasia McCarthy ’15

Person standing indoors in a professional office setting with arms crossed, wearing a dark blazer over a patterned dress. The background includes a modern seating area, a floor lamp, and a wall mounted sign with the text “Hurwitz Fine,” set against textured wall paneling.

Transgender individuals seeking to register a new name on government records have an ally in the work Anastasia Mccarthy ’15 does with students in the law school’s Civil Rights and Housing Clinic.

A civil litigator with Hurwitz Fine PC in Buffalo, McCarthy is a key facilitator of the clinic’s community name-change events, where she works alongside clinic students to guide pro bono clients through the required petition process. The effort is organized by the law school clinic in partnership with Our City Action Buffalo and the Erie County Bar Association’s LGBTQAI+ Committee.

There’s a great need for the assistance, McCarthy says, and it’s gratifying: “It makes you feel really good to know that the client is on their way to being who they are.”

McCarthy’s extensive volunteer service is inspirational to future UB Law advocates who aspire to create change. As a co-chair of the legislation committee of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, she lobbies for initiatives like a statewide supervised visitation program so children displaced by violence can visit a parent safely. Her committee’s advocacy was also instrumental in the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, expanding guarantees in the state Constitution against discrimination.

For McCarthy, her advocacy grows in part out of family life; she’s married to her classmate Anna McCarthy ’15, with two young children. “My children drive me forward every day,” she says. “I want them to know that the world is what we make of it.”