Rate My Professor Lori Nessel

Lori A. Nessel is Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law, where she has served since 1995, progressing from Clinical Assistant Professor (1995-1999) and Associate Professor (1999-2006) to full Professor in 2006. She directed the Center for Social Justice from 2006 to 2020, overseeing eight clinics and the pro bono program, conceptualizing initiatives such as the CSJ Scholars Program, CSJ Clinical Teaching Fellows Program, New Jersey Detained Immigrant Representation Project, and international collaborations with universities in Bulgaria, Haiti, Spain, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Since 2020, she has directed the Immigrants’ Rights/International Human Rights Clinic, teaching lawyering skills and supervising student representation in immigration cases, political asylum claims, United Nations Convention Against Torture Article 3 petitions, and international human rights projects. Her courses include Immigration and Naturalization Law, Professional Responsibility, Selected Topics in Immigration Law, International Human Rights Law, and Transnational Lawyering Skills. Under her leadership, clinics have litigated and won significant cases, issued reports on hospital deportations, asylum seekers' employment rights, wage theft among day laborers, and detained immigrants' representation needs, and secured $875,000 in grant funding.

Nessel holds a J.D. from CUNY School of Law (1992), where she received the Skadden Arps Public Interest Law Fellowship for representing migrant farmworkers, and a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz (1987), with honors and a President’s Undergraduate Fellowship. Before joining Seton Hall, she was Staff Attorney at Farmworker Legal Services (1992-1994), handling cases for migrant farmworkers under the Agricultural Worker Protection Act and other areas, and Associate Attorney at Koob & Magoolaghan (1994-1995), litigating civil rights matters including employment discrimination and police brutality. Her scholarship addresses immigration enforcement, refugee protection, migrant rights, and human rights, published in journals such as Arizona Law Review ("Deporting America’s Children: The Demise of Discretion and Family Values in Immigration Law," 2019), Georgetown Immigration Law Journal ("Immigration Law as Social Control: Instilling Fear and Regulating Behavior," 2017), San Diego Law Review ("Deliberate Destitution as Deterrent: Withholding the Right to Work and Undermining Asylum Protection," 2015), Minnesota Law Review ("‘Willful Blindness’ to Gender-Based Violence Abroad: United States Implementation of Article Three of the United Nations Convention Against Torture," 2004), and Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review ("Undocumented Immigrants in the Workplace: The Fallacy of Labor Protection and the Need for Reform," 2001). She served as Fulbright Senior Scholar at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Spain (2007-2008), led Seton Hall’s Haiti Rule of Law Program, and taught internationally in Europe, Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.