Affiliated Faculty

A critical element in any legal education is the faculty, and the Justice Action Center is proud to be the home of some of the legal community’s leading scholars. Students affiliated with the Center benefit from close interactions with these faculty members in academic, professional, and social settings. In addition, by providing students with access to faculty, the Center assures students the guidance and insight that are crucial to their scholarly development and professional success. The faculty members listed below are active participants in the Center, providing it and the students with the invaluable resource of their time, skills, and experience.

			Richard Marsico Professor of Law Codirector, Justice Action Center Director, Economic Justice Project Specialty: Anti-Discrimination Law and Economic Justice \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Marsico practiced poverty law in the South Bronx for the Legal Aid Society before joining the faculty at New York Law School. His clients have included tenant associations, public assistance recipients, and community groups seeking bank investment in these low-income neighborhoods. His scholarly interests include lending discrimination and community reinvestment, and he is currently completing a book on the subject. He is a member of the board of directors of the Washingtonville Housing Alliance, a not-for-profit developer of affordable housing.
			Deborah N. Archer Associate Professor of Law Director, Racial Justice Project Specialty: Anti-Discrimination Law and Economic Justice, Civil Rights \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Archer was a civil rights litigator before joining the faculty of New York Law School. She was a staff attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. where she focused on impact litigation in the areas of employment discrimination, voting rights and educational equity. Professor Archer was also the Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow with the National Legal Department of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and worked on issues of race and poverty. Her scholarly interests include educational equity, affirmative action and collateral sanctions for ex-offenders.
			Lenni B. Benson Professor of Law Director, Safe Passage Immigration Project Associate Dean for Professional Development and Professor of Law Specialty: Immigration Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Benson practiced immigration law for twelve years at an international law firm, where she represented both businesses and individuals in U.S. immigration law matters, and where she assisted clients seeking asylum status. Her ongoing scholarly pursuits focus on immigrant rights and political asylum, and she is as an active member of the board of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and a trustee for the American Immigration Law Foundation.
			Robert Blecker Professor of Law Specialty: Criminal Law and Death Penalty \| full biography \| publications \|
Robert Blecker teaches criminal law. His principal interest is the death penalty and he takes an active part in the national debate urging its retention but only for the worst of the worst.
			Frank Bress Professor of Law Specialty: Criminal Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Bress taught for twelve years in NYU Law School's clinical program, after which he went on to launch the clinical education program at Pace Law School. Prior to his work in education, he spent more than a decade in private practice, including white-collar criminal defense and commercial and tort litigation. In addition to his leading role in New York Law School's clinical program, Professor Bress currently cochairs the Criminal Justice section of the New York County Lawyers Association ("NYCLA"), chairs a NYCLA Task Force on Penal Policy, and is a member of the Criminal Courts Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
			Kris Franklin Associate Professor of Law Director, Academic Skills Program Specialties: Anti-Discrimination Law and Economic Justice, LGBT Rights, Family Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Franklin's scholarship focuses on the rhetoric of legal decision making, with her published works mirroring her political interests in gender roles, diverse family structures, and sexual identity. Her social justice work has encompassed the full spectrum of activism, from grass roots and direct action campaigns as an undergraduate, to her four years as a staff attorney in the Brooklyn Office of the Legal Aid Society and as a union delegate for the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, to her current work as an academic. Dedicated to training the next generation of advocates, Professor Franklin also serves as Director of the law school's Academic Skills Program.
			Lawrence M. Grosberg Professor of Law Director, Lawyering Skills Center Codirector, Elder Law Clinic Specialties: Social Change Advocacy \| full biography \| publications \|
As director of the Law School's Lawyering Skills Center, Professor Grosberg focuses on providing students with the skills necessary to be effective and humane advocates. His scholarship has focused on how law schools might improve their clinical and skills instruction and, in turn, how the bar admission process might better evaluate an applicant's competence to practice law. His prior litigation experience focused on discrimination, civil rights and class actions. In recent years, his energies have been directed more to mediation and less to the courtroom.
			Seth D. Harris Professor of Law Director, Labor and Employment Law Program Specialties: Anti-Discrimination Law, Labor & Employment Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Seth Harris spent nearly seven years at the United States Department of Labor as a senior advisor to both of President Clinton's Secretaries of Labor on policy, legal, management, and strategy issues. Professor Harris, who teaches Employment Discrimination Law, Labor Relations Law, and Problem-Solving & the Law of the Workplace, still maintains close contacts in Washington, D.C. and relishes enriching his teaching and legal scholarship with an understanding of politics and public policy. His scholarship examines the intersection of economics and the law of the workplace. He also serves as New York Law School's Director of Labor & Employment Law Programs.
			Mariana Hogan Professor of Law Director, Externship Program Specialty: Criminal Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Hogan’s practical experience with the Criminal Law started in clinical programs in law school and intensified after graduation, when she worked for four years as a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Division in the South Bronx on a caseload that included everything but homicide. She continued as a staff attorney in Legal Aid's Federal Defender Services Unit in Brooklyn. She applies this early experience to her work at New York Law School, where she heads up the law school’s Externship Program. She has also maintained strong ties to the social justice community, including past work as cochair of the New York County Lawyers’ Association Task Force on the Representation of the Indigent, and as cosponsor of the Annual Federal Criminal Practice Institute.
			Arthur S. Leonard Professor of Law Specialties: Labor & Employment Law, Anti-Discrimination Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Arthur Leonard, who focused on labor and employment law as a practitioner before joining the NY Law School faculty, has developed a specialty in lesbian and gay rights law. He edits the nation's only comprehensive newsletter on lesbian/gay/transgender/HIV legal issues, with assistance from NYLS students, and also explains new developments to a non-legal audience through regular articles in Gay City News. He teaches labor and employment law courses, as well as advanced torts and first-year Contracts. He also serves as a trustee of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services of New York, the nation's largest and most comprehensive voluntary agency providing mental health and family counseling services through the NYC metro area.
			Carlin Meyer Professor of Law Specialties: Anti-Discrimination Law, Family Law, Labor & Employment Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Carlin Meyer practiced employment law for 13 years, first in a private firm, then for a union, and thereafter as head of the Labor Bureau of the NYS Attorney General's office. She was recently appointed by the Attorney General to represent him in enforcing a labor code for greengrocers. She is a past president of the NYC Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and remains active in that organization, as well as in feminist legal organizations.
			Frank W. Munger Professor of Law Specialty: Poverty Law and Economic Justice \| full biography \| publications \|
Frank Munger teaches about poverty, economic justice, local government, and constitutional law. His research often combines analysis of legal policy with ethnographic and quantitative methods of inquiry. He is studying the new administrative state—a combination of entrepreneurial administration with devolution of policy making, privatization of public services, and other market-inspired changes—through a case study of welfare administration in New York City and Buffalo. He is also studying economic change in Southeast Asia and is in the final stages of a historical study of law and change in early West Virginia. Together with colleagues, he is writing a casebook on local government law that will emphasize issues of economic justice and democratic accountability. Recent publications include studies of poverty and welfare, a book on identity and disability rights (Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans With Disabilities, written with David Engel, a Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School), and an edited volume of ethnography and commentary on low-wage labor (Laboring Below the Line: The New Ethnography of Poverty, Low-Wage Labor, and Survival in the Global Economy). He is a Past President of the Law and Society Association and former general editor of the Law & Society Review.
			Michael L. Perlin Professor of Law Director, Mental Disability Law Program Specialty: Mental Disability Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Michael Perlin, formerly director of the NJ Division of Mental Health Advocacy, now teaches five mental disability law courses at NYLS, and has created the first and only on-line distance learning mental disability law course (being offered both domestically and internationally). He has written over a dozen books and 150 articles on all aspects of mental disability law, and is now focusing primarily on the connections between mental disability law and international human rights law.
			Edward A. Purcell Jr. Joseph Solomon Distinguished Professor of Law Specialty: Civil Rights and Federal Courts \| full biography \| publications \|
Professor Purcell practiced law in New York City where he did extensive work with The Legal Aid Society and served as his firm's pro bono coordinator. He was a member of the board of directors of Lawyers for Legal Aid as well as the Legal Aid Society's Community Law Office, and he is currently serving as an advisor to the Society and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on a project involving the legal representation of the poor in the New York City Housing Court. He teaches civil procedure, federal courts, and civil rights law, and much of his scholarly writing focuses on the impact of social inequality on the legal process.
			David Schoenbrod Trustee Professor of Law Specialty: Environmental Law \| full biography \| publications \|
A pioneer in the field of environmental law, David Schoenbrod was at the forefront of environmental justice. As staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council during the 1970s, he led the charge to get lead out of gasoline. Now, his concern has turned to Congress evading accountability to voters. In his current scholarship, Professor Schoenbrod asserts that Congress has inappropriately shifted its responsibility for the laws to regulatory agencies and courts. His widely-praised book, Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation (Yale University Press, 1993), was the genesis for the 1996 Congressional Review Act, which deals with agency regulations. He has continued to focus attention on this issue as co-author of the book Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government. His academic career has included positions at Yale Law School (1977) and New York University School of Law (1979-82). In addition to his current position at New York Law School, Professor Schoenbrod serves as an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He contributes frequently to the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other newspapers and periodicals.
			Nadine Strossen Professor of Law President, American Civil Liberties Union Specialty: Civil Liberties Law \| full biography \| publications \|
Since 1991, Professor Strossen has served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. She leads the ACLU's advocacy in many forums, including the Supreme Court, Congress, and the national media. She also has held leading positions in many other civil liberties and international human rights organizations, including as a member of the Executive Committee of Human Rights Watch and the Advisory Board of the National Coalition Against Censorship. Professor Strossen writes regularly for both scholarly and general interest publications, focusing on free speech and privacy issues, and more recently on the essential challenge of maintaining both personal liberty and national security. The University of Chicago Press recently invited her to serve as General Editor of a series of books on civil liberties issues.

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