Stacy Caplow

Professor Stacy Caplow, Associate Dean for Professional Legal Education, has been appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio to serve on the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.

For nearly 40 years, Brooklyn Law School’s Clinical Education Program has stood among the most respected training grounds for lawyers. Every semester, hundreds of students receive high-quality practical training in its varied clinics and externships, taught by nationally recognized clinical educators. Behind this success has been Professor Stacy Caplow, who has served as the program’s Director since 1984.

In a recent op-ed for The National Law Journal, Professor Stacy Caplow discusses the “sound public policy” of gubernatorial pardon power in preventing deportation of worthy residents.

A recent article in the New York Times discussed the growing trend of “law firms” developed by law schools across the country that pair students in need of practical experience with low-income clients. “It’s a perfect storm,” commented Professor Stacy Caplow, who is the director of Brooklyn Law School’s Clinical Education Program. “The longstanding concerns over access to justice for most Americans and a lack of skills among law graduates are now combined with the problems faced by all law schools. It’s creating conditions for change.”

In "What about an Immig-Corps?", an op-ed published in the National Law Journal, Professor Stacy Caplow discusses the dearth of lawyers for immigrants facing deportation. Referring to a recent study, she points out that detained immigrants who cannot afford counsel have little to no chance of avoiding deportation, while those who manage to raise enough money are often represented by inexperienced or predatory lawyers. Meanwhile, recent law school graduates are hesitant to practice immigration law because the pay is low and there are few jobs available to them. Professor Caplow suggests a model similar to AmeriCorps and Teach for America. She imagines "a structured program for these energetic law graduates to provide legal services to poor, unrepresented immigrants while developing skills and knowledge to improve the level of competency of the immigration bar for the long haul."

Professor Stacy Caplow’s op-ed, “Bullies on the Bench,” was published on March 5, 2007 in The National Law Journal. In the article, she describes a tarnished system of justice for immigrants, particularly asylum seekers, where abusive and disrespectful behavior by judges is too often tolerated. For example, it took three investigating bodies and over seven years to fire an immigration judge in Fishkill, NY, for egregious professional misconduct. Federal courts have repeatedly criticized immigration judges’ decisions. Last year, Attorney General Gonzalez pledged certain reforms, but none have been implemented. Professor Caplow called for a “zero tolerance policy” for abusive and incompetent judges, and sincere reform efforts for entrenched problems of the immigration courts.

Professor Stacy Caplow, Director of the Law School's Clinical Education Program, was selected by the Ireland-U.S. Fulbright Commission for a lecturing and research position at University College Cork for the fall 2006 term. She will work with the Faculty of Law to augment the clinical curriculum for LLB and LLM students. Among the projects and workshops that are planned are “teaching and learning” seminars that Caplow will conduct for the faculty and students. She will also work with LLM criminal justice students who participate in an externship, and with a local refugee center in conjunction with an immigration law course.