Clinic Faculty & Staff

Andrew I. Schoenholtz
Director, Center for Applied Legal Studies; Director, Human Rights Institute; Professor from Practice, Georgetown Law; B.A., Hamilton; J.D., Harvard; Ph.D., Brown

Professor Schoenholtz directs the Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies as well as the Center for Applied Legal Studies at the Law Center, and is the Deputy Director of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration.  He teaches courses on Refugee Law and Policy, Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies, and Immigration Law and Policy.  Prior to teaching at the Law Center, Professor Schoenholtz served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform and practiced immigration, asylum and international law with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling.  Dr. Schoenholtz has conducted fact-finding missions in Haiti, Cuba, Ecuador, Germany, Croatia, Bosnia, Malawi, and Zambia to study root causes of forced migration, refugee protection, long-term solutions to mass migration emergencies, and humanitarian relief operations.  He researches and writes regularly on refugee law and policy.  His publications include: Refugee Roulette:  Disparities in Asylum Adjudication (co-author); Refugee Protection in the United States Post-September 11th; The Uprooted:  Improving Humanitarian Responses to Forced Migration (chapter on “Improving Legal Frameworks”); and Aiding and Abetting Persecutors: The Seizure and Return of Haitian Refugees in Violation of the U.N. Refugee Convention and Protocol.   Dr. Schoenholtz holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. from Brown University.

Denise Gilman
Co-Director, Center for Applied Legal Studies; Visiting Professor of LAW; B.A., Northwestern; J.D., Columbia; LLM., Georgetown

Professor Gilman has been teaching immigration law courses and clinics for almost 20 years. Since 2007, she has served as Co-Director and Clinical Professor with the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law where she also teaches a Refugee Law and Policy seminar. Her teaching, clinic supervision, and scholarship at the University of Texas are focused on representation of migrants in removal proceedings, immigration detention, asylum law, and border policy. Prior to joining the University of Texas, she served as a teaching fellow with the Georgetown Law Center for Applied Legal Studies, where law students represent individuals fleeing persecution as they seek asylum in the United States. She will teach with the Center for Applied Legal Studies as a visiting faculty member for the Spring 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters.

Professor Gilman received her law degree from Columbia University School of Law and served on the Law Review. She
received her undergraduate degree with honors in political science from Northwestern University and also has an LLM from
Georgetown Law. Professor Gilman clerked for Judge Thomas M. Reavley, at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit.

Megan E. Elman-Welch

Clinical Teaching Fellow; B.S., Georgetown University; J.D., George Washington University School of Law

Megan Elman-Welch is a supervising attorney and Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). Before joining CALS, Megan was the Supervising Attorney for Special Programs at the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN NY) in Long Island, New York. As Supervising Attorney, Megan launched and ran CARECEN NY’s Afghan Legal Assistance Program, which serves Long Island’s Afghan immigrant community. Megan also expanded CARECEN NY’s law school programming to foster future attorneys’ dedication to serving Long Island’s immigrant communities. Megan supervised, trained, and mentored staff attorneys, paralegals, interns, and accredited DOJ representatives in affirmative and defensive immigration matters. Megan also represented clients directly in a variety of immigration matters, including asylum, withholding of removal, protection under the Convention Against Torture, T visas, U visas, adjustment of status, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, temporary protected status, and appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Prior to her supervisory role, Megan was a staff attorney at CARECEN NY’s removal defense team. Megan joined CARECEN NY as an Immigrant Justice Corps Justice Fellow.

Megan received her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. Megan served as Senior Notes Editor of The George Washington Law Review. Prior to law school, Megan served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps as a paralegal at the Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Battered Immigrant Project. Megan received her B.S. in Regional Comparative Studies of Latin America and the Middle East from Georgetown University. Megan speaks Spanish.

Sophia Genovese

Clinical Teaching Fellow; B.A., Whittier College; J.D., Brooklyn Law School

Sophia Genovese is a supervising attorney and Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). Before joining CALS, Sophia was the Managing Attorney for the asylum and detention programs at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center. There, she oversaw assistance to several thousand asylum seekers in obtaining release from immigration detention and securing immigration protection. Sophia’s practice has also centered on systemic advocacy, including obtaining a nationwide change to ICE policy on behalf of people with physical disabilities in detention and acting as the legal expert for the Dignity Not Detention bill at the New Mexico State Legislature. Before this, Sophia founded a detention representation program at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York, working at the intersection of law and community organizing to achieve the release of people with removal orders from immigration detention. Since 2016, Sophia has worked on a range of immigration matters, from business immigration visas to family-based petitions to all forms of humanitarian protection.

Sophia received her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School through the 2-year accelerated J.D. program. There, she served on the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, received several public service awards, and received CALI Awards for the Deportation Defense and Business Immigration Law courses. During law school, Sophia served as the Assistant to the Rapporteur for the UN’s Global Migration Group, authoring its official report in the lead-up to the 2016 UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants. Sophia graduated summa cum laude from Whitter College, receiving her B.A. in Political Science and Global and Cultural Studies, with a certificate in organizational management.

Susie Saffari

Case and Docket Manager

Susie is the Case and Docket Manager for the Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). Prior to joining CALS, Susie was the Immigration Legal Services Manager at CASA, Inc., where she represented clients in DACA, TPS, and other affirmative immigration cases as a DOJ Accredited Representative. Susie also worked with unaccompanied children detained at a secure Office of Refugee Resettlement detention facility while working at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights as a senior paralegal and DOJ Accredited Representative.