The City University of New York School of Law would like to announce the faculty members recognized for their commitment to teaching, scholarship, and service by being granted tenure and/or promotion by the Board of Trustees.
Congratulations to the following faculty for their commitment to our students and the greater community.
Lisa Davis is a Professor of Law; Special Adviser on Gender Persecution to the International Criminal Court; Founding Faculty Chair of the Institute on Gender, Law, and Transformative Peace Initiative, and; Co-Director of the Human Rights & Gender Justice Clinic (formerly named International Women’s Human Rights Clinic). Professor Davis has written and reported extensively on gender-based crimes and human rights issues in conflict and other crisis settings, including on women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights. Davis has testified before U.S. Congress, European Parliament, U.K. Parliament, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and several international human rights treaty bodies. Serving as the first Special Adviser on Gender Persecution to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Professor Davis drafted the first-ever policy on the crime of gender persecution.
Nicole Smith Futrell is a Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Defenders Clinic, Director of the Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the W. Haywood Burns Chair of Human and Civil Rights Program. Her career has been dedicated to advocating for the rights of those accused of criminal offenses. In her clinical practice, she and her students represent clients in a variety of criminal defense-related contexts, including state court misdemeanor cases, parole and clemency petitions, wrongful conviction matters, and civil claims related to criminal convictions. Professor Smith Futrell’s teaching and scholarship focus on criminal procedure, legal ethics, post-conviction relief, reentry, and social justice lawyering. Her work explores the relationship between racial justice advocacy and criminal legal reform and practice.
Charisa Kiyô Smith is a Professor of Law who co-directs CUNY’s intersectional Family Law Practice Clinic and teaches first-year Torts, Contemplative Practice & the Law (Sustainable Lawyering), and Juvenile Law. Professor Smith’s work is cited by federal and state courts, government agencies, practitioners, and advocates. A graduate of Yale Law School and Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, Professor Smith was also the William Hastie Fellow at Wisconsin Law School, where she received an LL.M. and taught juvenile and family law. Professor Smith’s work addresses state overreach into the lives of marginalized families, the need for youth and community empowerment, the overcriminalization of youth, and sexual/gender-based harms among youth. A longtime Zen Buddhist, Smith fosters mindful lawyering and balance in legal education. She is passionate about carceral abolition and re-imagining the American experiment beyond ableist racial capitalism.