Jennifer Fernandez is an Assistant Professor at CUNY School of Law. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale College, a Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School, and a Master of Science in Teaching from Pace School of Education. At CUNY School of Law, Jennifer teaches primarily in the Academic Support and Bar Support Program. Previously, Jennifer served as a clinical supervisor and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School from 2018 through 2022. As a clinical instructor, Jennifer taught and supervised students as they took on direct representation of low-income clients in a range of civil litigation matters in state and federal court, including landlord-tenant, social security disability, employment discrimination, child abuse expungement, consumer debt, consumer, wage theft, and family law cases. She also served as a faculty externship supervisor.
Before full-time law teaching, Jennifer served as a public interest attorney at Queens Legal Services in the Domestic Violence Family Law Advocacy Project and the Tenants’ Rights Coalition, and at Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem in the Civil Defense Practice. In these capacities, she represented individual and group clients in a variety of complex, urgent legal proceedings involving eviction defense; affirmative litigation for tenant building services; preservation of public benefits and housing; collateral consequences of criminal proceedings; and custody, child support, divorce, and family offense proceedings for survivors of domestic violence.
Jennifer has taught and mentored students in a range of settings including as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Queens College-City University of New York, a New York City Department of Education special education teacher, and through working with various youth programs such as Sadie Nash Leadership Project, Legal Outreach, Columbia High School Law Institute, and the New York City Bar Association Diversity Pipeline Initiatives Committee.
Jennifer clerked for Judge Lawrence H. Ecker of the New York State Supreme Court, Ninth Judicial District. She is a recipient of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs and the New York City Teaching Fellowship. Jennifer’s scholarly interests include access to justice in local civil courts and administrative agency proceedings; increasing access to the legal profession; and examining American law school teaching methodology.
