AILA Presents Lindsay M. Harris with the 2020 Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award

WASHINGTON, DC - The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) recognizes Lindsay M. Harris, Associate Professor of Law at the University of the District of Columbia School of Law, and Director of the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic, with the 2020 Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award.

Professor Harris supervises students representing D.C. community members in removal proceedings and applications for humanitarian immigration relief. She also leads service-learning trips to detention centers and the U.S./Mexico border.

Before joining UDC Law, Professor Harris taught in the asylum clinic at Georgetown Law and taught Asylum and Refugee Law at George Mason University. She also worked with the American Immigration Council on efforts to end the detention of immigrant families and at the Tahirih Justice Center as an Equal Justice Works fellow and staff attorney leading the African Women's Empowerment Project. Professor Harris clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the late Judge Harry Pregerson. In law school she focused on advocacy for immigrants and was awarded the Berkeley Law Sax Prize for her advocacy at the East Bay Community Law Center and with the International Human Rights Clinic.

Professor Harris's publications address contemporary issues in asylum law and policy as well as best practices in clinical pedagogy. She has published widely, including in the Wisconsin Law Review, the New York Review of Law and Social Change, the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, and the Clinical Law Review. With Professor Laila Hlass from Tulane University, Professor Harris is the co-creator of the Legal Interviewing and Language Access Film Project, a teaching tool and resource. Her forthcoming works includes a piece on critical interviewing with Professor Hlass and a national study examining trauma, burnout, and stress among asylum attorneys. She has also had opinion pieces published in the Washington Post, USA Today, and The Hill, among other outlets.

Professor Harris earned her J.D. summa cum laude from Berkeley Law and her L.L.M. from Georgetown. She serves as Vice-Chair of the AILA National Asylum and Refugee Liaison Committee and as the Vice-Chair of the Board of D.C.-area nonprofit, the Asylum Seeker Assistance Project. Professor Harris is a member of the California bar and speaks French. She was born and raised in the U.K. and is mother to two energetic children and a lovable mutt.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members.