He served as a law clerk to the Hon. Rosemary S. Pooler of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a 2004 cum laude graduate of New York University (NYU) School of Law, where he was a Hays Fellow, a Junior Fellow in NYU's Institute for International Law and Justice, and a staff editor of the NYU Journal of International Law & Politics. He received the L.L.M. degree in 2005 from NYU in International Legal Studies. During his L.L.M. year he served as Legal Advisor to the Palau Mission to the United Nations, focusing on climate change and protection of ocean resources. His work for Palau was profiled in an article in the New York Times and he gave a speech to the UN General Assembly on Palau's behalf in 2004.