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CityAndStateNY.com
June 19, 2017
LILIAN VIEIRA PASCONE CHIEF OF STAFF, NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF STATE Birthday: 06/12/1983
EDUCATION
Swarthmore College; Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Twitter: @lvpascone
ILIAN VIEIRA PASCONE entered law school with a plan. She had lived in China for years and gained proficiency in Mandarin, and she wanted to go into corporate law, possibly returning to Asia. But as she approached her graduation from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, Pascone realized her heart wasn’t in it. She wanted to engage in the world around her – and help change that world for the better. Pascone became a voting rights fellow at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she used her language skills to educate voters about their rights, trained people to monitor polling places and helped with voter hotlines. She moved on to become the legislative and budget director for thenNew York City Councilman Mark Weprin and eventually the chief of staff for the New York Department of State, where she oversees high-profile initiatives such as the Liberty Defense Project, which provides legal representation to immigrants facing deportation. “Working in politics is just fascinating,” Pascone says. “I like that you’re constantly balancing competing interests, but at the same time finding a way to get to a yes. So you have this very practical skill set that you’re using, it’s intellectually stimulating – all of the writing, the drafting, the policy work – and then it’s all tied together by knowing that everything you’re doing is to help people. … It’s impossible to be bored.”