Brooklyn Law School Ranked No. 1 for Public Defenders/Prosecutors and No. 5 for Public Interest Law by preLaw Magazine

01/24/2018

Brooklyn Law School topped the list of best law schools in the nation for public defenders and prosecutors and ranked fifth for public interest law in the Winter 2018 issue of preLaw magazine.

The Law School’s strong clinical program and emphasis on experiential learning contributed to the top ranking. The magazine cited Brooklyn’s long history of dedication to these career paths as a draw for law students and highlighted the success of the BLS/EXI Innocence Clinic, which allows students to provide legal assistance to wrongfully convicted individuals in New York.

“It’s been in the DNA of Brooklyn Law School for a long time,” Professor Stacy Caplow, Associate Dean of Professional Legal Education and co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice, told the magazine.

The story also profiled Maryann Tharappel ’11, special projects director for Immigrant & Refugee Services at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, as an example of the Law School’s strength in public interest law.

Tharappel said she was unsure about sticking with law school until she met Professor Maryellen Fullerton, who helped her see a place for herself as an advocate for asylum seekers and refugees. Last year, she partnered with Fullerton and Caplow to train a group of students, alumni, and faculty to create a Know Your Rights project, and spearheaded another partnership with the Law School to help provide free legal screenings for immigrants at community legal clinics.

“The immigration system is so complicated that it’s barely understood by immigration practitioners, much less someone with a second-grade education who just arrived here,” Tharappel told the magazine. She credits her time at the Law School for enabling her work to reduce the “access-to-justice gap” among immigrants.