For Immediate Release
June 26, 2008

Media Contact:

Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

Professor Schrag

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center Professor Philip Schrag has been honored with the 2008 Daniel Levy Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in immigration law by LexisNexis Matthew Bender. He accepted the award at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) annual conference in Vancouver, B.C., on June 25.

Established in 2002, the Levy Award is given annually and recognizes an individual for "enthusiastic advocacy on behalf of immigrant clients, deep scholarship in immigration law and an expansive vision of justice." The late Daniel Levy was a leader and national figure in immigration law, publishing and scholarship.

At Georgetown Law, Schrag is professor of law and director of the Center for Applied Legal Studies, which represents refugees seeking political asylum in the United States. He also directs the Public Interest Law Scholars Program, designed for students who wish to pursue public interest careers.

Earlier this year, Schrag and his former client, David Ngaruri Kenney, released a new book, "Asylum Denied: A Refugee’s Struggle for Safety in America" (University of California Press, 2008), the chilling story of Kenney’s attempt to escape persecution in his native Kenya and gain asylum in the United States. Yale Professor Bruce Ackerman described it as "a fabulous book – a love story, a law story, a struggle against death, a battle for justice, and much more."

In 2007, Schrag, Georgetown Law Visiting Professor Andrew I. Schoenholtz and Temple University Beasley School of Law Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales released a study, "Refugee Roulette," which uncovered immense disparities in refugee adjudications in U.S. immigration courts. The authors demonstrated that the outcome of an asylum case depends to a great extent on the personality, background and prior experience of the adjudicator, rather than the merits of the claim. A story about the study appeared on the front page of the New York Times on May 31, 2007.

Schrag has also been a longtime advocate for law students who wish to pursue public interest careers. His work was instrumental to the passage of the student loan forgiveness program for public service employees that Congress included in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, passed in 2007. In recognition of his public interest leadership and service, Schrag received the Deborah L. Rhode Award from the Association of American Law Schools in 2008.

Schrag has written extensively on asylum, consumer protection, nuclear arms control, clinical legal education, student financial aid, legal ethics, District of Columbia statehood and other public policy subjects. He is the author of thirteen books including, "A Well-Founded Fear: the Congressional Battle to Save Political Asylum in America" (1999) and "Repay As You Earn: The Flawed Government Program to Help Students Have Public Service Careers" (2002).

Before beginning his teaching career, Schrag served as assistant counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and as the first Consumer Advocate of the City of New York. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, he also served in the Carter administration as the deputy general counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

 

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body representing more than 60 countries.

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