Bio
Zach Heiden is chief counsel and director of program and strategy at the ACLU of Maine, where he coordinates the organization’s integrated advocacy. Zach was hired in 2004 as the organization’s first staff attorney. Over more than two decades with the organization, he has defended the rights of artists, immigrants, incarcerated people, journalists, pregnant people, protesters, religious minorities, students, and whistleblowers. In 2012, Zach served on the Executive Committee of Mainers United for Marriage, the statewide campaign to win marriage equality.
Zach earned his Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College in 1995, his Master of Arts in Modern Irish and British Literature from the University of Florida in 1998, and his Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 2002. During law school, he served as managing editor of the BCLS International and Comparative Law Review and founded BCLS’s first chapter of the American Constitution Society. He was awarded the Law School Alumni Association Award at graduation. He was a law clerk to Hon. Susan Calkins on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. He is the author of Fences and Neighbors, 17 Law and Literature 225 (2005) and Too Low a Price: Waiver and the Right to Counsel, 62 Maine L. Rev. 488 (2010).
In his free time, Zach enjoys spending time with his family at the ocean and eating meals in their backyard with neighbors. His wife, Alisha, is a writer and teacher.
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