The Slatest

London Human Rights Lawyer Amal Alamuddin Is Engaged

Alamuddin, left, at a 2012 press conference related to the imprisonment of former Ukranian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Reuters has a brief biography of Amal Alamuddin, a 36-year-old human rights lawyer whose London law firm issued a statement this morning congratulating her on her engagement.

She was educated at St Hugh’s College, Oxford University, and New York University School of Law and speaks Arabic and French fluently, according to the law firm’s website.

Alamuddin has advised United Nations former secretary-general Kofi Annan on Syria, represented Ukraine’s ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in challenging her detention before the European Court of Human Rights and has also represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in extradition proceedings.

Alamuddin, born in Beirut, once worked for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor when Sotomayor was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals.*

Her husband-to-be is an American actor and director who played “Kip Howard” on the television mystery program Murder, She Wrote.

*Correction, April 28, 2014: This post originally misstated that Amal Alamuddin clerked for Justice Sotomayor. Alamuddin worked in Sotomayor’s office while attending a New York University School of Law LL.M. post-graduate program.