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 holds a J.D. from CUNY School of Law at Queens College (1992), where she received the Skadden Arps Public Interest Law Fellowship for representing migrant farm workers, and a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz (1987), earning Honors on oral exams and the President’s Undergraduate Fellowship. Prior to joining Seton Hall, Nessel was a Staff Attorney at Farmworker Legal Services in New Paltz, New York (1992-1994) as a Skadden Fellow, handling cases involving migrant farmworkers' civil rights, employment discrimination, housing, and Agricultural Worker Protection Act violations, including lead counsel in federal sexual harassment and AWPA cases. She then practiced as an Associate Attorney at Koob & Magoolaghan in New York (1994-1995), representing plaintiffs in civil rights litigation on employment discrimination, police brutality, prisoners’ rights, and special education.

Nessel directs the Immigrants’ Rights/International Human Rights Clinic (2020-present), supervising law students in immigration cases, asylum claims, protection from torture under Article 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture, and international human rights advocacy, securing victories in federal courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Her clinic has produced reports on hospital deportations of vulnerable immigrants, employment rights for asylum seekers, wage theft among day laborers in New Jersey, and the need for expanded pro bono representation for detained immigrants, raising $875,000 in grant funding. From 2006 to 2020, she directed the Center for Social Justice, overseeing eight clinics, pro bono programs, and initiatives including the N.J. Detained Immigrant Representation Project, CSJ Scholars Program, international collaborations with universities in Bulgaria, Haiti, Spain, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, and delegations to the U.S.-Mexico border. She teaches Immigration and Naturalization Law, International Human Rights Law, Professional Responsibility, and clinical lawyering skills, and has served as Adjunct Professor at St. John’s University School of Law. Her scholarship includes 'Deporting America’s Children: The Demise of Discretion and Family Values in Immigration Law,' 61 Ariz. L. Rev. 605 (2019); 'Immigration Law as Social Control: Instilling Fear and Regulating Behavior,' 31 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 525 (2017); 'Deliberate Destitution as Deterrent: Withholding the Right to Work and Undermining Asylum Protection,' 52 San Diego L. Rev. 313 (2015); 'The Practice of Medical Repatriation: The Privatization of Immigration Enforcement and Denial of Human Rights,' 55 Wayne L. Rev. 1725 (2009); and book chapters in Research Handbook on Migration and International Law (2014) and Awakening from the Dream (2006). She has presented widely at conferences on immigration law and human rights.