Class of 1998-9  Email: lkohn@law.gwu.edu

Placement: Georgetown University Law Center Domestic Violence Clinic

Profile:

Laurie is a cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Georgetown University Law Center.  At Georgetown, Laurie was the articles Editor of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics and participated in the Domestic Violence Clinic.  While at Georgetown, Laurie worked as a law clerk for the ACLU and the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division. After two years at Crowell & Morning, LLP, Laurie’s experience as a student in Georgetown’s Domestic Violence clinic led her to a Women’s Law and Public Policy Teaching Fellowship.  During her fellowship year, Laurie supervised students at the Domestic Violence clinic and taught a seminar on family law, domestic violence law and trial advocacy.  At the conclusion of her fellowship, Laurie received an LLM in advocacy from Georgetown.

Laurie was a Visiting Associate Profess of Law and the Co-Director of the Georgetown University Law Center Domestic Violence Clinic until 2010, when she joined the faculty at George Washington University School of Law as Director of the Family Law Clinic.  She is also the Hearing Examiner in the DC Office of Police Conduct and a member of the DC Mayor’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. 

Affiliations and Public Service:

Laurie has been actively engaged in public service around the DC area.  She is currently the chair of the DC Bar Family Law Section Steering Committee, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Domestic Violence Task Force, is a member of the Executive Committee Board for the Frederick B. Abramson Memorial Foundation and spends time as a counselor for the Family Law Facilitator Pilot Project. 

Laurie has also given numerous presentations and lectures on domestic violence.  She has appeared on numerous radio shows on WBAL and the Georgetown Forum, presented in a training seminar for pro bono attorneys, and held seminars in associate with the DC Bar Association.

Publications:

The Criminal Justice System & Domestic Violence: Engaging the Case but Divorcing the Victim (forthcoming 2007 in NYU REV. L. & SOC. CHANGE)

Barriers to Reliable Credibility Assessments: Domestic Violence Victim-Witnesses, 11 AM. U.J. GENDER SOC. POL'Y & L. 733 (2003)

Why Doesn’t She Leave?  The Collision of the First Amendment and Effective Court Remedies for Victims of Domestic Violence, 29 HASTINGS CON. L. QUART. 1 (2001)

Infecting Attorney-Client Confidentiality: The Ethics of HIV Disclosure, 9 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 547 (1996)

LITIGATING CIVIL PROTECTION ORDER CASES (2006) (with Deborah Epstein et al.)

DC BAR PRACTICE MANUAL, “Domestic Violence” (2006 Update) (with Elizabeth Liu and Jane Stoever)

DC BAR FAMILY LAW TRAINING MANUAL (2003) (with multiple co-authors)

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A MANUAL FOR PRO BONO LAWYERS (1999 Update) (with Catherine Klein and Deborah Epstein)