Philip G. Schrag

Professor of Law; Director, Center for Applied Legal Studies.
A.B., Harvard; LL.B., Yale

     Professor Schrag teaches Civil Procedure and directs the Center for Applied Legal Studies, in which students represent refugees from persecution who are seeking asylum in the United States. He is also the Director of the Public Interest Law Scholars Program, through which selected law students who plan careers as public interest lawyers receive scholarship grants and special academic enrichment and guidance in that field. Before joining the Law Center faculty in 1981, he was assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense Educational Fund, Consumer Advocate of the City of New York, a professor at Columbia University Law School, and Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, from which he received a Meritorious Honor Award in 1981. Professor Schrag has also had a distinguished and varied career in civic service, which has included positions as a delegate to the District of Columbia Statehood Constitutional Convention in 1982, an editor and consultant on consumer protection during the Carter-Mondale transition, a consultant to the New York State Consumer Protection Board, a consultant to the Governor's Advisory Council of Puerto Rico, and an Academic Specialist for the United States Information Agency in the Czech Republic and Hungary. In addition, he drafted New York City's Consumer Protection Act of 1969. He is also a prolific author, having written dozens of articles on consumer law, nuclear arms control, political asylum, and various other topics for both law journals and popular publications. He is the author of thirteen books, including Reflections on Clinical Legal Education (with Michael Meltsner, 1998), and Asylum Denied: A Refugee’s Struggle for Safety in America (with David Ngaruri Kenney, 2008).

Publications

David A. Koplow

Professor of Law; Director, Center for Applied Legal Studies.
B.A., Harvard, Queen's College at Oxford; J.D., Yale

     After graduating from Yale Law School in 1978, Professor Koplow served first as an attorney-advisor, then as special assistant to the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He has also served as secretary of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security and as a member of the Policy Board of Legal Counsel for the Elderly and the steering committee of Section 2 of the D.C. Bar. Professor Koplow teaches International Law I, seminars in Arms Control and National Security, Proliferation of Modern Weapons, and other topics, as well as a clinic, the Center for Applied Legal Studies. He has written in the areas of international law, U.S. foreign affairs law, and arms control, especially regarding verification of compliance with arms control treaties. He was a member of the Social Security Administration Commission on the Evaluation of Pain.

Publications

Kate Aschenbrenner, Fellow    

      Kate Aschenbrenner earned a B.A. in integrated international studies from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, winning honors and the E. Inman Fox Prize (given each year to an outstanding graduate).  She received her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a member of the Civil Legal Services clinic and Executive Editor of the Journal of International Law and Politics.  During law school, Kate also worked for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York.  She clerked for Judge Jack B. Weinstein at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

     After clerking, Kate helped to start a new immigration program at Gulfcoast Legal Services in St. Petersburg, Florida.  She worked in that program providing direct legal services to indigent clients in immigration matters and conducting community education and outreach from 2003 to 2006.  She went on to work for St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida before coming to CALS.  At St. Thomas, she taught and supervised students in the Immigration Clinic and worked at the University’s Human Rights Institute representing low-income clients in immigration cases.

Anjum Gupta, Fellow

    Anju Gupta earned a B.A. in Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with high honors in Psychology. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as Student Director and Supervisor in the Immigration Legal Services Clinic and as Student Intern in the Advocacy for Parents and Children Clinic, both in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. Also in law school, she worked at the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project, the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She also served as Director of the Rebellious Lawyering Conference and co-founded and directed the Temporary Restraining Order Project’s Domestic Violence Clinic. Prior to law school, she served as an Associate Teacher at the University of Michigan Children’s Center and a staff member at Ozone House Youth and Family Services.

    Before coming to CALS, Anju served as a Clinical Fellow at Seton Hall University School of Law, where she supervised students and represented clients in the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic and the Civil Litigation Clinic. While at Seton Hall, she also traveled to Haiti as part of the Haiti Rule of Law Project, authored an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court, and co-authored Abuse of (Plenary) Power? Judicial Deference and the Post-9/11 War on Immigrants, in Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice (Denise C. Morgan, Rachel D. Godsil, and Joy Moses, eds., Carolina Academic Press, 2005) (with Lori A. Nessel).

    Anju clerked for Judge Charles P. Sifton in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and Judge Chester J. Straub in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Between clerkships, she spent several months living and studying Spanish in Cuenca, Ecuador and backpacking throughout Central and South America, Spain, and Morocco.