Mary Kelly Persyn, JD, PhD
Mary Kelly Persyn is founder and principal attorney of Persyn Law & Policy. Her advocacy leverages children’s rights in the courts and strives to expand the field’s concept of child maltreatment. She has been a member of the Amicus Committee since 2017 and its chair since 2021. Mary Kelly leads APSAC’s amicus efforts in a broad range of state and federal courts. In 2019, APSAC and over 30 allied individuals and organizations filed an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court in support of the children of DACA recipients, and that support continued in 2024 in Texas v. United States in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Since 2022, Mary Kelly has focused intensively on protecting the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming youth through her work with APSAC, including briefs in Doe v. Abbott and PFLAG v. Abbott in Texas, and the American Bar Association Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Commission, including contributing to multiple policy resolutions. Relevant articles have appeared in APSAC Alert (with Dr. Vincent Palusci), LA County Lawyer, and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council magazine. She writes and provides education to lawyers and judges about child trauma, ACEs, toxic stress, and the impact of positive childhood experiences. As an elected member of the American Law Institute, she was part of the Members Consultative Group for the Restatement of Children and the Law. Mary Kelly holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Washington and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.
