The Family Law Practice Clinic advocates for individuals and communities in one of the most important civil rights issues of our time: the government policing of family life and state intervention into the lives of families of color and of low-income.

The Family Law Practice Clinic challenges the systemic racism and classism driving state intervention into the private lives of families and communities of color and lower socioeconomic status. Its faculty and students examine the doctrine, policy, and practice of family law, especially as it applies to low-income families living at the nexus of state intervention around youth justice, child welfare services, threats to parental rights due to institutionalized and discriminatory definitions of care, and the consequences mass incarceration creates for families of color.

The practice clinic allows students to serve domestic violence survivors, children, parents involved in the child welfare system, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals and families, and formerly incarcerated parents. Broad themes include state power and intervention impacting individual and family rights; how the law defines a family (and a child) and how those definitions have changed throughout history; how underlying racial and economic disparities and the effects of mass criminalization impact legal interventions; unintended consequences of state intervention; intersections between public systems; under-served disabilities; and potential alternative strategies to litigation.

In the classroom, students will become familiar with general family law doctrines such as divorce, custody and visitation, child dependency and protection, parental defense in abuse and neglect proceedings, paternity and child support, as well as law-related to juvenile justice and intimate partner violence.

Faculty

  • Charisa Kiyô Smith
    Co-Director, Family Law Practice Clinic and Associate Professor of Law
    Chariso Kiyô Smith was the William Hastie Fellow at Wisconsin Law School, where she received an LL.M., taught Introduction to Juvenile Justice, and lectured in the Family Court seminar prior to joining the CUNY Law faculty. A graduate of Yale Law School and Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, Professor Smith teaches courses including Domestic Relations and the interdisciplinary, intersectional Family Law Practice Clinic. Her scholarship investigates themes such as personal capacity for decision-making and caregiving, moral and legal responsibility, harm, and remedy. Focusing on two broad areas—the criminalization of youth behavior and the threat to parental rights among those with mental disabilities—Professor Smith has published widely. She is the recipient of numerous distinctions including the Arthur Liman Public Interest Law Fellowship, the Schell International Human Rights Fellowship, the Michael Rockefeller Fellowship, and the Harvard History Essay Prize. Continuing her study of Zen Buddhism for over ten years, Professor Smith encourages mindful lawyering and balance in legal education. Read Chariso Kiyô Smith's full bio.
  • Tarek Z. Ismail
    Co-Director, Family Law Practice Clinic, Counsel to CLEAR, and Associate Professor of Law
    Tarek Ismail co-directs the Family Law Practice Clinic and is of counsel to CUNY Law's Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project. He began his work with CLEAR in 2016 as a Staff Attorney and then Senior Staff Attorney, where he worked with individuals approached for questioning by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, experienced difficulties traveling, were placed on federal watchlists, experienced severe immigration delays on grounds of national security, and otherwise faced discriminatory scrutiny by law enforcement. Read Tarek Ismail's full bio.  
x