Professor Epstein joined the faculty as a visiting professor in 1993. She has been the Director of the Georgetown University Law Center’s Domestic Violence Clinic for 25 years, and served as Associate Dean for Experiential Learning from 2005-2012. She has spent more than 35 years advocating for the rights of survivors of domestic violence and has represented hundreds of women in civil protection order cases. She co-chaired the DC Superior Court’s effort to design and implement its Domestic Violence Division, an early, model effort to integrate civil and criminal cases involving intimate abuse. For five years, she served as Co-Director of the court’s Domestic Violence Intake Center. She served on the NFL Players’ Association Commission on Violence, and has served as Chair of the DC Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, Director of the Emergency Domestic Relations Project, and as a member of the DC Mayor’s Commission on Violence Against Women, the DC Superior Court Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors of the House of Ruth.

Scholarship

Featured Scholarship

Deborah Epstein & Lisa A. Goodman, Discounting Women: Doubting Domestic Violence Survivors' Credibility and Dismissing Their Experiences, 167 U. Pa. L. Rev. 399-461 (2019).
[WWW] [Gtown Law] [HEIN] [W] [L] [SSRN]

Deborah Epstein, Jane H. Aiken & Wallace J. Mlyniec, Teaching the Clinic Seminar (St. Paul, Minn.: West Academic 2014).

Deborah Epstein, Jane H. Aiken & Wallace J. Mlyniec, The Clinic Seminar (St. Paul, Minn.: West Academic 2014).

Lisa A. Goodman & Deborah Epstein, Listening to Battered Women: A Survivor-Centered Approach to Advocacy, Mental Health, and Justice (Wash., D.C.: American Psychological Association 2008).

[BOOK]

Deborah Epstein, Laurie Kohn et al., Litigating Civil Protection Order Cases: A Practical Manual (Wash., D.C.: Georgetown University Law Center/Women Empowered Against Violence (WEAVE) 2011).

[BOOK]

Deborah Epstein, Beyond the Classroom: Applying the Stages of Rounds Structure to Analysis of Clinical Supervision, in Transforming the Education of Lawyers: The Theory and Practice of Clinical Pedagogy 162-167 (Susan Bryant, Elliott S. Milstein & Ann C. Shalleck eds., Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press 2014).

[BOOK]

Deborah Epstein & Lisa A. Goodman, Domestic Violence Victims' Experiences in the Legal System, in Stress, Trauma, and Wellbeing in the Legal System 45-61 (Monica K. Miller & Brian H. Bornstein eds., New York: Oxford University Press 2013).

[BOOK]
In The News
March 10, 2020

"2020 Margaret Brent Honorees," announcement by the American Bar Association, March 10, 2020, honoring Professor Deborah Epstein.

Back To Faculty Listing
Related Courses