Alexis Brooks

‘My Cousin’s Life Is in Danger’: Panel Discussion on Women and Girls in Afghanistan Set for Tuesday

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Prompted by her own cousin Sodaba Wakili’s dire situation in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and an ongoing effort to get her out, New Canaan resident Shekaiba Bennett has organized a free panel discussion scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at New Canaan Library (register here). The panel, titled “Women & Girls in Afghanistan: Listen, Learn, Act,” wil be moderated by New Canaan’s Sheri West, founder of LiveGirl, and will include town resident and attorney Alexis Brooks, among others. 

We put some questions to Bennett ahead of the panel. Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: What is the genesis of Tuesday night’s panel discussion “Women & Girls in Afghanistan: Listen, Learn, Act”? Shekaiba Bennett: New Canaanites are quite worldly and often express concern to me, likely the only Afghan-American living in town, about the status of women and girls in Afghanistan, especially since the 2021 Taliban take over.

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‘Skilled, Knowledgeable, Well-Connected’: Met on Youth Soccer Sidelines, Two New Canaan Women Mark One Year Since Forming Law Group

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Elizabeth DiRusso and Alexis Brooks had known each other exactly six years when, on a clear, sunny afternoon in October 2015, they met for a fateful walk on South Avenue. It was chilly, so each woman wore a fleece as they set out with their young yellow Labrador retrievers—Hadley DiRusso-Grenauer, who will turn four next month, and Ginger Brooks, now five and who had been, as a puppy, a difficult dog to leash-walk. Lawyers who graduated one decade apart from Suffolk Law School in Boston, the women had talked off and on for years about the prospect of working together one day. That day that had never materialized, understandably. DiRusso just then was 25 years into a career that had included a stint as general counsel for a multinational company that took her family from New Canaan to London from 2010 to 2013.