Deborah Epstein
Co-Director, Professor of Law

Professor Epstein has directed the Domestic Violence Clinic since 1993, and has spent almost 30 years working as an advocate for victims of intimate partner abuse. She co-chaired the design and implementation of the D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Division, which fundamentally restructured the way civil and criminal family abuse cases are handled. Specialized judges preside over all family law, civil protection order, and criminal cases involving domestic abuse; a multi-agency approach is employed to decrease the incidence of family violence and to improve litigants’ access to crucial legal, medical, and social services. For the court’s first five years, Professor Epstein also directed the court’s newly-created Domestic Violence Intake Center, a one-stop center where survivors can obtain assistance and advocacy in their civil and criminal court cases as well as crisis intervention counseling and support.

Professor Epstein has served on the NFL Players’ Association Domestic Violence Commission, Chair of the DC Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, on the Board of the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the House of Ruth, and as a member of the D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Coordinating Council and the D.C. Mayor’s Commission on Violence Against Women. She has trained hundreds of police officers, prosecutors, and judges around the country and internationally on domestic violence issues. In 2020, she recently was awarded the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Award for professional excellence in women lawyers. She serves on D.C.’s Judicial Nominations Commission, helping to select judges to serve on the local courts.

Professor Epstein’s publications in this area include: Loneliness and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Intimate Partner Violence Survivors, J. FAMILY VIOL. (2020); From Isolation to Connection: The Practices and Promise of Open Domestic Violence Shelters, J. INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE (2020); Discounting Women: Doubting Domestic Violence Survivors’ Credibility and Dismissing Their Experiences, 167 U. PENN. L.REV 339 (2019); Beyond the RCT: Integrating Rigor and Relevance to Evaluate the Outcomes of Domestic Violence Programs, 39 AM. J. EVALUATION (2018); LISTENING TO BATTERED WOMEN: A SURVIVOR-CENTERED APPROACH TO ADVOCACY, MENTAL HEALTH, AND JUSTICE (APA Press, 2008); The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project: A Quasi-Experimental Test of a Collaborative Model for Cases of Intimate Partner Violence, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (2009); Refocusing on Women: A New Direction for Policy and Research on Intimate Partner Violence, 20 J. INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE 479 (2005); Transforming Aggressive Prosecution Policies: Policies: Prioritizing Victims’ Long-Term Safety in the Prosecution of Domestic Violence Cases, 11 AM. J. GENDER, SOC. POLC’Y & LAW 465 (2003); Procedural Justice: Tempering the State’s Response to Domestic Violence, 43 WM. & MARY L.REV. 1843 (2002); and Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence Cases: Rethinking the Roles of Prosecutors, Judges, and the Court System, 11 YALE JOURNAL OF LAW AND FEMINISM 3 (1999).

Rachel Camp
Co-Director, Professor from Practice

Rachel Camp is Co-Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic (DVC) and a Professor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center. She joined Georgetown’s faculty in 2011 and became co-director in 2013. Prior to joining Georgetown, from 2008-2011, Professor Camp served as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the University of Baltimore School of Law. During her time both as a fellow and at Georgetown, she has represented, and has supervised law students representing, hundreds of survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in civil protection order and family law cases. In addition to direct legal representation, Professor Camp has also supervised law students on community education and systemic legal reform projects aimed at increasing access to justice for survivors. Professor Camp currently serves on the D.C. Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board and is on the Board of Directors for the D.C. Affordable Law Firm.

Professor Camp teaches and writes on clinical pedagogy and has published articles on a range of topics relating to best methods for teaching and supervising law students. Her scholarship also explores the intersection of IPV, shame, and litigation. Pursuing Accountability for Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence: The Peril (and Utility?) of Shame, 98 Boston Univ. L. Rev. 1677 (2018), examines how formal and informal methods of shaming those who harm lead to counterproductive outcomes for reducing violence in intimate relationships. From Experiencing Abuse to Seeking Protection: Examining the Shame of Intimate Partner Violence, 13 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 103 (2022), considers how shame can shape a survivor’s help-seeking experience. In addition to her scholarship, Professor Camp provides trainings to a range of audiences on shame, IPV, and trauma, including judges, legal practitioners, and non-lawyer professionals.

Professor Camp also serves as the faculty director for the D.C. Affordable Law Firm (DCALF) LL.M. program. This program places recent graduates from Georgetown and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law at DCALF. DCALF is a non-profit law firm that provides legal representation to D.C. residents who fall between 200-400% of the federal poverty rate and who otherwise may be unable to obtain legal representation in a range of civil matters, including family law, immigration, and probate and estate planning.

Myka Held
Teaching Fellow

Myka Held received a Bachelor’s Degree from Brandeis University in 2009 in Women’s and Gender Studies and American Studies, a Master’s Degree in Women’s and Gender Studies at Loyola University Chicago in 2012, and a Juris Doctor at Georgetown University Law Center in 2015. Throughout all of her education, she has focused her research, courses, and internships on gender-based violence.

Most recently, she was a Senior Staff Attorney at Legal Aid Chicago in the Children and Families Practice Group, where she specialized in sexual assault cases. Since she began at Legal Aid Chicago in 2016, she has been part of the Comprehensive Legal Assistance for Survivors Project (CLASP), which partners with rape crisis organizations to provide cohesive services to sexual assault survivors. Throughout her entire time at Legal Aid Chicago, she represented domestic violence and sexual assault survivors in civil protective order hearings, domestic relations, and education law cases. She regularly gave presentations to advocates, lawyers, and community members about the dynamics and legal issues present in sexual assault cases. Before Myka started at Legal Aid Chicago, she worked at SurvJustice, a now defunct national organization that represented sexual assault survivors in all types of legal cases, specializing in education issues. Myka joined the Domestic Violence Clinic in July 2023.

Jeannie Lieder
Teaching Fellow

Jeannie is a clinical teaching fellow with Georgetown University Law Center’s Domestic Violence Clinic. Her background is in criminal defense, and she is particularly interested in harm reduction, restorative justice, and centering individuals’ humanity in her practice. Jeannie comes to the Domestic Violence Clinic inspired by her prior work with criminalized survivors.

Jeannie received her B.A. in Anthropology with highest distinction from the University of Michigan, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, in 2011. She graduated from Stanford Law School in 2016 where she was granted her J.D. with pro bono high distinction. After law school, Jeannie clerked for the Honorable Justin S. Anand of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and the Honorable Douglas P. Woodlock of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She worked as a public defender for 6 years, first at the New Hampshire Public Defender and then at the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts, representing individuals charged with a wide range of misdemeanor and felony offenses. As a public defender, she dedicated herself both to her clients and to mentoring and supervising law students and new attorneys. In her free time, Jeannie enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and getting outside with her dog.

Anna Harty
Office Manager

Anna serves as the office manager for several programs at Georgetown Law. She handles the day-to-day administrative operations of the Domestic Violence Clinic, the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, the Social Enterprise & Nonprofit Law Clinic, and the DC Affordable Law Firm LL.M. Fellowship Program. She graduated from Xavier University with a B.A. in Gender & Diversity Studies. As a Brueggeman Fellow at Xavier, Anna developed an independent study examining the role of gender in conflict resolution and traveled to Uganda to engage in related research. After graduating, Anna did a year of service through Jesuit Volunteer Corps and coordinated legal services for asylum seekers at YMCA International Services in Houston, TX.