P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans

YAHONNES CLEARY is a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York where he represents corporate and individual clients in a broad range of complex commercial litigation and investigations.

Yahonnes was born in Massachusetts to Jamaican parents and grew up in the Bronx.

After receiving a BA, summa cum laude, with election to Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University in 2000, Yahonnes earned an MSc from Oxford University in modern history in 2002, where he was a Marshall Scholar. Yahonnes received his JD from Yale University in 2009 and clerked for Hon. Barrington D. Parker, Jr. for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. He joined Paul, Weiss in 2011.

Prior to law school, Yahonnes was a Program Associate at the Ford Foundation where he supported the foundation's economic development initiatives; a Community Development Fellow at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice where he supported the organization's homeownership, employment, and criminal justice programs; and a consultant to the mayoral campaign of Cory Booker.

Yahonnes has served on the Board of Directors of Prep for Prep, the Yale Law School Fund, and Choate Rosemary Hall.