Kris Franklin

Professor of Law
Director, Academic Skills Program

Long a non-conformist, Kris Franklin brings a talent for creative and unconventional thinking to her teaching and to her leadership of the Academic Skills Program.
 

Professor Franklin is an acknowledged expert in the field of legal pedagogy and experiential learning in law school. She is frequently asked to speak about her work in these fields, and has served as President and member of the Board of the AALS Section on Academic Support. She is the founder of the New York Area Academic Support Workshop.
 

Professor Franklin came to New York Law School from NYU Law School, where she taught and coordinated faculty, and worked to develop a curriculum in critical legal thinking in its Lawyering Program. At New York Law School she teaches Torts and Principles of Legal Analysis to first-year classes, where she continues to experiment with pioneering methods of teaching lawyering skills. She also offers instruction in Negotiation, Counseling and Interviewing to upper-level students, and is the founding advisor to New York Law School’s Dispute Resolution Team.
 

Professor Franklin first became involved in legal academia as a law student, where she served as an Editor-in-Chief of the New York University Review of Law & Social Change. To guide her teaching she also draws on her years as a staff attorney working with a diverse clientele in the Brooklyn Office of the Legal Aid Society. There she focused on housing and family law, conducting numerous trials, hearings, and appellate arguments, while also litigating public benefits and immigration cases.
 

Ever an activist — working on grass roots and direct action campaigns from her undergraduate years through her professional practice and her present career in academia — Professor Franklin was a union delegate for the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys and a member of the ALAA Bargaining Committee. She has also been active in numerous professional organizations, serving on several committees of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and Board of Directors of the Pratt Area Community Council. She has spent time as an active member of a number of grassroots organizations, including the Lesbian Avengers and the Women’s Health Action Mobilization.
 

Professor Franklin’s scholarship focuses on legal pedagogy and on the rhetorics of legal decision-making. Her published works, both academic and non-academic, often mirror her interests in gender roles, diverse family structures, and sexual identity.