Stacy Caplow, the Guiding Light for Clinical Education

Professor Stacy Caplow is one of five professors retiring after this spring semester. To share a memory of or to send greetings to Professor Caplow, please send an email to communications@brooklaw.edu. She would love to hear from her former students and colleagues. 

When Professor Stacy Caplow joined the faculty of Brooklyn Law School in 1976, she was hired to teach something totally new: the school’s first in-house clinic focused on criminal defense.  

Brooklyn Law School students, eager to gain practical experience, had fiercely lobbied for an in-house, faculty-taught program. Joined by several farsighted faculty members, they persuaded Dean Raymond Lisle to become an early adopter of what was then a marginalized component of legal education.  

Caplow made a bold leap into academia. "I was a little bit of a surprise to the more traditional faculty members teaching at the time, but I was here and I stayed. Even though many of them did not understand clinical education in its early days, they were very welcoming to me," Caplow recalled.

Professors Margaret Berger and Richard Farrell ’64, who both taught Evidence, became champions of Caplow’s efforts to teach Criminal Law, which she has taught almost every semester since the mid-1980s. She has also taught Criminal Procedure: Adjudication, Immigration Law, International Criminal Law and a variety of seminars and specialized classed over the years. During several leaves and sabbaticals, she worked at the offices of the Brooklyn District Attorney and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY), and visited law schools in other countries, advising them about clinical education and teaching immigration law. 

"One of the best aspects of my time at Brooklyn Law School has been the opportunity to broaden my horizons as an academic and as a practitioner," Caplow said. "A highlight of my long career here is the many opportunities I've had to take steps in a new direction, to reinvent myself." 

Evolution of Legal Clinics 

Since Caplow began teaching that first Criminal Defense clinic 50 years ago to a class of 15 students, legal clinics have gone from optional to imperative for any law school seeking the best and brightest students. Caplow served as Clinic Director overseeing in-house clinics and externships, as well as simulation classes for 40 years, and as Brooklyn Law School’s first Associate Dean of Experiential Education from 2012 to 2023. While witnessing the evolution of clinical education from the sidelines into the mainstream, she also served as the president of the Clinical Legal Education Association and was on the board of editors of Clinical Law Review.  

"Clinical education was controversial and often treated as second class," Caplow said. "It was seen by many law schools, not just Brooklyn, but everywhere in the country, as deviating from and challenging traditional forms of legal education, which were largely lectures or discussions held in large classrooms. It was more expensive and its faculty usually came to teaching from practice. Instead of sitting in the classroom, we had students who were going to courts, working with clients, meeting with opposing counsel, appearing before judges. They wrote briefs instead of taking finals!"  

The excitement of their work and their accomplishments became a point of pride for BLS as its clinics expanded and became more embedded in the school’s identity as a destination for those seeking careers in public service. 

When Caplow started teaching, most law school clinics would handle smaller litigation matters on behalf of indigent clients, such as in housing or criminal court. Over the years, Brooklyn Law School’s clinics have expanded to perform every kind of legal work, and they serve clients in state, federal, and administrative courts. BLS was a pioneer in inaugurating transactional clinics, and a wide and sophisticated range of litigation clinics. The school also offered niche clinics in areas such as Criminal Appeals, Elder Law, Bankruptcy, Securities Arbitration, and Mediation. The school’s ties with federal and local district attorneys’ offices and partnerships with groups like the Legal Aid Society, the NYC City Council and the Children’s Law Center have expanded the opportunities. 

"It’s a movement in legal education that has finally become so regularized that any school that does not have a strong clinic program would be considered to be out of date and unlikely to draw many student applicants," Caplow said. "The curriculum is more sophisticated and clinical scholarship is respected. Our current faculty members represent a new generation of clinicians with job security and generous institutional and administrative support. And there is a million-dollar view from the clinic office in 111 Livingston Street."  

Providing Practical Experience, Public Service 

The clinic program has increasingly become intertwined with the overall curriculum, serving as one way to earn the six credits of experiential learning that are required to graduate. BLS also requires every student to enroll in at least one clinic or externship. Students whose interest is piqued by a class often find a clinic on the same topic which allows them to test-drive practicing different types of law.  

"There's something for every student, not just to meet their substantive interest in an area of practice, but also to help develop the type of work that they're interested in whether that is litigation, negotiation or arbitration or transactional lawyering," Caplow said. "The students discover that their clinic experiences tell very appealing stories to potential employers. Even more importantly, their lives have been enriched by helping people by accomplishing something in a real-world setting." 

Clinics are an important component of one of the key areas of strength at BLS—its commitment to public service. "We serve immigrants, we serve tenants, we serve criminal defendants, people who really have a need and can't afford to obtain counsel otherwise," Caplow said. "That connection between education and service is a really important part of Brooklyn's identity, and is part of what draws students to Brooklyn Law School. They can learn to be lawyers while also helping others." 

Launching the Safe Harbor Clinic 

In 1997, Dean and President Emerita Joan Wexler asked Caplow to launch a new clinic in whatever area of the law that interested her. She chose immigration law, which turned out to be "the smartest decision I’ve ever made at Brooklyn Law School," Caplow recalled. Collaborating with Suzanne J. and Norman Miles Professor of Law Maryellen Fullerton, Professor of Law Emerita Ursula Bentele, Professor Dan Smulian and Adjunct Professor Jeffrey Heller, Caplow started the Safe Harbor Project, whose mission was to assist immigrant clients to obtain humanitarian relief. This clinic transformed Caplow’s academic and professional focus. She taught both the immigration law survey course as well as many seminars and specialty classes in the area, the most recent of which was a seminar called Law & Literature: The Immigrant Experience co-taught with Fullerton. Caplow also served on many committees working on immigration issues. 

The clinic’s workload was intense, but so were the rewards. Clinical faculty and students would spend hours with clients and their families who were seeking asylum or other forms of legal protection in the United States. Caplow and her students attended court hearings and asylum interviews, which typically required waking up at dawn to drive to an 8 a.m. appointment in Long Island or New Jersey. More than 350 students have succeeded in providing safety and permanence for about 125 individuals and families from more than 40 countries over the years.  

"Nothing could be a happier moment in our clients' lives than hearing that they were granted asylum," Caplow said. "Clinic students knew that they were instrumental in achieving this. Many have gone on to immigration careers inspired by their clinic experiences. Even years later, they remember their clinic clients." 

It All Comes Back to Community 

Over the years, teaching students who are enthusiastic about learning the law has been a joy for Caplow, who has especially cherished working side by side with committed clinic students and with 1L Criminal Law students. 

"It's always a pleasure over the years to hear from students who call or email me to say, 'I got my first acquittal,' or 'I won my first asylum interview,'" Caplow said. "It's great to know that they still remember that their teachers have a role to play in their lives sparking their careers." 

The faculty also has been a source of community and sharing. While there were just a few women teaching at Brooklyn Law School when she started, Caplow was part of a new generation of female professors, including Professor Fullerton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law Susan Herman, (both also retiring this spring), Rose L. Hoffer Professor of Law Emerita Elizabeth Schneider, Professor of Law Emerita Marilyn Walter, Professor of Law Emerita Beryl Jones-Woodin, 1901 Distinguished Research Professor of Law Marsha Garrison, Associate Professor Emerita of Legal Writing Elizabeth Fajans, and Assistant Professor of Legal Writing Carrie Teitcher. Caplow remembers with humor the year "that six or seven women faculty members were pregnant! The students thought there was something in the water." 

"Our generation of BLS faculty grew up together as professors, and in our personal lives," Caplow said. "One of the reasons Brooklyn Law School has been a special place for me is the wonderful colleagues I have had over the years who are also dear friends."  

A Wish for the Future 

As Caplow prepares to empty her office of 50 years of accumulated books, papers and memorabilia, she is very nostalgic about her long career at BLS. "It’s been my home and family for so long. I’m proud to have been a part of the growth and development that we see in all aspects of the school today," she said. "I am totally confident that our dedicated faculty and staff, and our enthusiastic students will carry on!"