About the Authors
Lisa G. Lerman
Lisa G. Lerman is a professor of law at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, where she has taught since 1987. She attended Barnard College (B.A. 1976) and NYU School of Law (J.D. 1979). She received an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1984. Before joining the faculty at Catholic University, Lerman was a staff attorney at the Center for Women Policy Studies, a Clinical Fellow at Antioch and Georgetown law schools, a member of the law faculty at West Virginia University, and an associate in a law firm. She also has taught at the law schools of American University, George Washington University, and Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland).
At Catholic University, in addition to her teaching responsibilities, Professor Lerman serves as the law school’s coordinator of clinical programs. She is responsible for development and administration of the externship program and oversees some clinical courses. From 1996 until 2007 she served as director of the Law and Public Policy Program, an academic enrichment program for students seeking careers in public service. She has taught professional responsibility since 1984. She has also taught contracts, clinical and externship courses and seminars in family law, public policy, and the legal profession.
Professor Lerman is co-author of Learning from Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs (2d ed.,West 2007). She has written many articles about lawyers, law firms, the legal profession, and legal education, including, for example, Blue-Chip Bilking: Regulation of Billing and Expense Fraud by Lawyers, 12 Geo. J. Leg. Ethics 205 (1999), and Lying to Clients, 138 U. Pa. L. Rev. 659 (1990). Lerman’s earlierwork focused on domestic violence law.
Professor Lerman served as chair of the Professional Responsibility Section of the Association of American Law Schools and as a member of the DC Bar Legal Ethics Committee. She is a member of the planning committee for the ABA National Conference on Professional Responsibility and of the National Advisory Committee of Equal Justice Works. Lerman has been an expert witness on legal ethics issues in legal malpractice cases and lawyer disciplinary matters. She has been a consultant on legal education issues, most often on legal ethics, externship programs, and teaching pedagogy, at law schools in the United States and in Europe.
Philip G. Schrag
Philip G. Schrag is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He attended Harvard College and Yale Law School. Before he started a career in law teaching, he was assistant counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and in 1970 he became the first consumer advocate of the City of New York. A member of the founding generation of clinical law teachers, he developed clinics at Columbia Law School and the West Virginia University College of Law, as well as at Georgetown. During the administration of President Jimmy Carter, he was the deputy general counsel of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
At Georgetown, Professor Schrag directs the Center for Applied Legal Studies, an asylum and refugee clinic, and Georgetown’s Public Interest Law Scholars Program. He regularly teaches civil procedure and has also taught consumer protection, federal income taxation, legislation, administrative law, and professional responsibility. He has written thirteen books and many articles on public interest law and legal education including Asylum Denied: A Refugee’s Struggle for Safety in America (with David Ngaruri Kenney) (U. Cal. Press 2008). He is vice-chair of the Government Relations and Student Financial Aid Committee of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. In 2007, he helped to persuade Congress to enact § 401 of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which provides partial student loan forgiveness for graduates who work for ten years in public interest jobs. For this work, he received the Deborah L. Rhode Award at the 2008 national conference of the Association of American Law Schools.
Professors Lerman and Schrag have two children, Sam and Sarah, who are both in college. Sam serves in the United States Air Force Reserve. Professor Schrag has two adult sons, David and Zachary, and two grandchildren, Leonard and Nora.
