This semester, our world-class faculty have navigated uncharted territory as industry leaders and our student-attorneys continue to gain invaluable practice experience while making a positive impact in our community. We are thrilled to celebrate their accomplishments. Client names and images have been changed as needed to respect client confidentiality.

GW Law's Health Law Initiative transformed into a comprehensive program, offering a wider and deeper array of innovative courses and opportunities to shape future health law leaders. Featured in the Program's rollout were Professors Emily Benfer, Drake Hagner, and Renée Gentry, Directors of the Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic, Health Rights Law Clinic, and Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic, respectively.

The Health Rights Law Clinic student-attorneys represented several clients in Washington, D.C. under the supervision of Professor Drake Hagner. In addition to their casework, they toured the D.C. Office of Administrative
Hearings and met with Principal Administrative Law Judge Curt Campbell to discuss careers in public health law and the role of Administrative Law judges.

The Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic, supervised by Professor Renée Gentry won a case a year ago in a matter that resulted in the death of a young child. This fall, the Department of Justice appealed the matter to the Federal Circuit and a team of student-attorneys is responding to that appeal. The student-attorneys also prepared a briefing on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for members and staffers on the Hill.

This fall, the Access to Justice Clinic, directed by Dean Laurie Kohn, hosted five divisions and enrolled 26 students. Professors Caroline Rogus, Darryl Maxwell, Steve Saltzburg, Robin Runge, and Dean David Johnson each directed a division of the Clinic. The Access to Justice Clinic, an innovative clinical model, was launched in 2021 with the goals of creating a clinical model that can pivot quickly to address community legal needs, student educational interests, offer a more modest time commitment to students, and to take advantage of the expertise of GW faculty who do not traditionally teach in the Clinical Program. To learn more about our Family Law, Nonprofit & Entrepreneurship, Prisoner Civil Rights, Workers’ Rights, and Education Access Advocacy Divisions click here.

GW's Jacob Burns Community Legal Clinics served as a sponsor for D.C. Start-Up Week 2023, an event that hosts thousands of local start-ups. Student-attorneys from our Access to Justice Clinic, Non-Profit & Entrepreneurship Division, provided support to local start-ups at D.C. Start-Up Week under the supervision of Professor Darryl Maxwell.

We applaud the work of Rachel Pritzlaff (Class of '24), Briana Oates (Class of '24), and Alexis Portnoy (Class of '24) for their great work.

This fall, student-attorneys with the Access to Justice Clinic, Workers’ Rights Division, under the supervision of Professor Robin Runge, drafted a rule-making comment for their client, First Shift Justice Project.The student-attorneys worked with the client to provide comments in support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, RIN 3046–AB30, which addresses Regulations to Implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Congratulations to student-attorneys Mihailo Djuric (Class of '24), Sara Hodgkin (Class of '24), Ema Klugman (Class of '24), Rebecca Punnoose (Class of '24), and Gabriel Trujillo-Lederer (Class of '24), pictured above.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review announced the appointment of 39 immigration judges to courts across the United States on November 7, 2023. Among those appointed was GW alumna Anam Rahman Petit (J.D. ‘12). Immigration Judge (IJ) Rahman Petit is the Immigration Clinic's 6th alum to be appointed an IJ. The full announcement is available here.

If you are a Clinic alum or current student-attorney interested in joining our new LinkedIn group for current Clinic students and alums please provide the name of the clinic you have been affiliated with and the year of your enrollment along with your requests to join. You may request to join here.

Professor Alberto Benítez
Professor of Law; Director, Immigration Clinic

In August 2023, Professor Alberto Benítez was featured in the What’s The Deil podcast hosted by the Norfus Firm, PLLC, available here.

Professor Arturo Carrillo
Professor of Law; Director, Civil and Human Rights Law Clinic

In November 2023, Professor Arturo Carrillo was quoted in United Press International, Inc. about the suit filed on behalf of Joaquin Oliver, a teenager killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The article is available here.

Professor Renée Gentry
Distinguished Professorial Lecturer in Law; Director, Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic

In November 2023, Professor Renée Gentry completed a briefing on Capitol Hill about the implications of leaving the claims of those injured by the COVID-19 vaccine in the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program rather than the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The same month, Professor Gentry was quoted in MedPage Today about the best ways to preserve an effective vaccine injury program, available here. In September, Professor Gentry moderated two panels at the 2023 National Vaccine Law Conference which was hosted at GW Law.

Professor Jeffrey Gutman
Professor of Law; Director, Public Justice Advocacy Clinic

In November 2023, Professor Jeffrey Gutman was quoted about wrongful conviction statutes and related statistics in an NPR interview, available here. In October, The Washington Post and New York Times quoted Professor Gutman regarding the highest payout in Maryland for the wrongful conviction of three men. The same month, Professor Gutman joined the board of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. In July, Professor Gutman was quoted by the New York Times discussing wrongful convictions, available here.

Professor Susan Jones
Professor of Law; Director, Small Business & Community Economic Development Clinic

In November 2023, Professor Susan Jones was awarded the Transform Mid-Atlantic Award, which recognizes individuals for outstanding contributions to the institutionalization of equity and community engagement.

Dean Laurie Kohn
Jacob Burns Foundation Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs; Director, Family Justice Litigation Clinic; Director, Access to Justice Clinic

Dean Laurie Kohn presented her article, “Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Denial and Wrongs Against Women,” at the Clinical Writers’ Conference at NYU in September 2023. In July, Dean Kohn presented at the SEALS Conference on innovations in family law pedagogy. In June, Dean Kohn presented on clinical legal education and domestic violence at the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina to students and to the Buenos Aires Bar Association.

Professor Joan Meier
National Family Violence Law Center Professor of Law; Director, National Family Violence Law Center at the George Washington University Law School

In September 2023, Professor Joan Meier presented on The Disinformation Wars as part of a Symposium Panel on Parental Alienation at the European Conference on Domestic Violence in Reyjkavik, Iceland. In August, NFVLC and DV LEAP at NVRDC, jointly filed an amicus brief on the merits in Rahimi v U.S., the case challenging the gun ban for individuals subject to domestic violence protection orders, available here. In July, Professor Meier presented to the International Society of Family Law Conference panel on High Conflict Family Disputes 2: Parental Alienation and she delivered presentations to attorneys and mental health professionals as part of a collaborative training package hosted by the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in Seattle, WA. In June, Professor Meier delivered a plenary presentation to the Oregon Judicial Family Law Conference at Willamette. The same month, she spoke as a panelist at the Beau Biden Foundation Child Protection Conference in Maryland on the Crisis in Family Court and was interviewed by a South Korean TV Network about domestic violence protections for victims who are not married or otherwise related to their abusers, available here.

Professor Caroline Rogus
Distinguished Professorial Lecturer in Law; Director, Family Law Division, Access to Justice Clinic

In November 2023, Professor Caroline Rogus participated in an annual training of doctors who are part of the Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, the District’s public psychiatric facility. In July, Professor Rogus presented at the Ninth Biennial Conference on Applied Legal Storytelling, hosted by the City of London Law School on the limitations that pro se litigants encounter when attempting to present narratives in family court, and the harms that can result. Between May and June, Professor Rogus hosted training sessions for D.C. Family Court’s Self Help Center employees on the process for obtaining and amending children’s birth certificates.

Professor Robin Runge
Distinguished Professorial Lecturer in Law; Director, Workers’ Rights Division, Access to Justice Clinic

In August 2023, Professor Robin Runge was elected to be Chair of the American Bar Association Civil Rights and Social Justice Section. The same month, she was appointed to a 3-year term on the Equal Justice Works Alumni Advisory Council.

Professor Paulina Vera
Professorial Lecturer in Law; Immigration Clinic

In July 2023, Paulina Vera was named on Lawyers of Colors’ inaugural “Wonderful Women” list, which recognizes dynamic women attorneys who show promise in their careers and demonstrate a strong commitment to advancing diversity in the legal profession. The same month, Professor Vera taught a mock law school class for high school students in the GW Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute's Caminos al Futuro Program for the fourth year.