Biography
Professor Margaret Martin Barry came to Vermont Law School as a visiting professor and associate dean for clinical and experiential programs in 2011 and joined the regular faculty in 2012. She served as associate dean for clinical and experiential programs until December 2016. Her current teaching responsibilities include criminal law, professional responsibility, and a seminar on race and the criminal justice system.
Professor Barry was previously a professor at Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. She has published in the areas of legal education and family law, and has served on numerous professional panels discussing clinical teaching and legal representation. She served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education and as president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA). Both the AALS Clinical Section and CLEA are the leading professional organizations for clinical legal educators in the United States.
Professor Barry also served as co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). She served as vice chair of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Standards Review Committee; she has also served on the Section's Nominations Committee and Clinical Skills Committee, and has served on a number of Section's law school site evaluation teams. She was a member of the Board of Editors of the Clinical Law Review from 2008-2013.
In addition to her academic activities, she has served on Vermont’s Access to Justice Coalition, Vermont Supreme Court’s Self-Represented Litigants Committee, and she collaborated with the Vermont Bar Association on the joint law school VBA incubator project for recent law school graduates. While at Catholic University, she co-chaired the D.C. Bar's Family Law Section and its Family Law Representation Committee, was active in developing pro bono and pro se services for D.C. residents who have limited access to legal representation, and served on committees and working groups addressing domestic violence and domestic relations issues.
Professor Barry graduated magna cum laude from Luther College and received her JD degree from the University of Minnesota. After working on Capitol Hill and doing pro bono representation for several years, she joined the faculty of CUA's Columbus Community Legal Services (CCLS) in 1987. She taught in CCLS's Families and the Law Clinic since its inception in 1993. She also taught family law at CUA and the litigation process in CUA's American Law Institute in Krakow, Poland. In summer 2005, she taught as a Fulbright senior specialist at NALSAR Law University in Hyderabad, India, and lectured as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Montenegro in 2007. In addition to her current courses, she has taught mediation, civil procedure I and II, interviewing counseling and negotiation, and supervised students in the externship program and general practice clinic at VLS.
Publications
Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning, with Robert Dinerstein, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel, and Linda Morton, accepted for publication, J. Legal Educ., Winter 2018
Make it Worthwhile: Reflections on the Process of Identifying Outcomes and Mapping a Law School Curriculum, accepted for publication, N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev., Fall 2017
Reflection through Journals and Conversation, with Alex Scherr, Learning from Practice, 3d Edition (2016) (the new edition reorganizes and re-envisions the book; this revised chapter on reflection connects reflection to the ways the skill is developed in externship courses)
Brief Amicus Curie on behalf of Appellants, Vermont Human Rights Commission, et al., v. The State of Vermont, et al (2015)
Book Review: Luz Herrerra, Reinventing the Practice of Law: Emerging Models to Enhance Affordable Legal Services (ABA 2014) Fall 2015 Edition, Vermont Bar Journal
Integration with the Profession, with Sharon Reich Paulsen, in Experience the Future: Papers from the Second National Symposium on Experiential Education in Law 7 Elon L. Rev. 89 (2015)
Teaching Social Justice Lawyering: Systematically Including Community Legal Education in Law School Clinics, 18 Clin. L. Rev. 401 (2012), with A. Rachel Camp, Margaret E. Johnson, Catherine F. Klein, & Lisa V. Martin
Practice Ready: Are We There Yet? 32 B.C. J. Law & Soc. Justice 247 (2012)
The Role of National and Regional Clinical Organizations in the Global Clinical Movement, in Frank Bloch, Et Al., The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers For Social Justice (2011) with Filip Czernicki, Izabela Krasnicka and Mao Ling
Books
Editor, D.C. Bar Pro Bono Child Custody Training Manual, March 2006
Articles
Status Matters: A Time to Act, SECTION ON CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION NEWSLETTER (November 2005)
Clinical Legal Education for This Millennium: The Third Wave, with Jon C. Dubin and Peter A. Joy, 7 CLIN. L. REV. 1 (2000)
Accessing Justice: Are Pro Se Clinics a Reasonable Response to the Lack of Pro Bono Legal Services and Should Law School Clinics Conduct Them? 67 FORDHAM L. REV. 1897 (1999)
The District of Columbia's Joint Custody Presumption: Misplaced Blame and Simplistic Solutions, 46 CATH. U. L. REV. 801 (1997)
The Downside of Benign Intent, 5 AM. U. J. GENDER & L. 1 (1997)
"A Leap Backward: D.C.'s Child Custody Act," The Washington Lawyer (Nov/Dec 1996)
Protective Order Enforcement: Another Pirouette, 6 HASTINGS WOMEN'S L.J. 339 (1995)
Clinical Supervision: Walking That Fine Line, 2 CLIN. L. REV. 137 (1995)
A Question of Mission: Catholic Law School's Domestic Violence Clinic 38 HOW. L.J. 135 (1994)
Chapters
"Reflective Lawyering," Chapter 5 in Learning from Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs, and Teacher's Manual, West 1998, and revised for 2nd edition, West 2007
"Teen Dating Violence" (coauthor) in Creative Child Advocacy: Global Perspectives (Brooks and Kumari, eds., Sage Publications, India, 2004)
"The Statutory Standard in Child Custody Cases and How to Meet It," Chapter 3in District of Columbia Bar Practice Manual (1997)
"Domestic Violence," Chapter 12 in District of Columbia Bar Child Custody Training Manual, Second Ed. (with Leslye Orloff) (1995)
Other
Pro Se Pleadings for Unrepresented Litigants in DC Family Court (2005, revised 2007/8) (Collaboration, Members of the Pleadings Subcommittee of the Family Law Representation Committee)
Pro Se Custody Clinic Teaching Materials and Parenting Plan (April 2004) (Lead in collaboration with members of the Custody Clinic Subcommittee of the Family Law Representation Committee)
A Teacher's Trouble: Risk, Responsibility and Rebellion, 2 CLIN. L. REV. 315 (1995)(Conference Transcript)
Awards & Accomplishments
Awards, Honors or Grants
Clinical Legal Education Association Outstanding Advocate, 2006
Clinical Legal Education Association, Service to Clinical Legal Education, 1999
Affiliations
Section on Clinical Legal Education
- Member since 1995 - President, 1999 - Vice-President, 1998 - Executive Board Member, 1997 to 2003 - Co-chair, Standards Committee, 2002 to 2005Clinicians of Color
- Member (Founding Member) 1992-Present
Poverty Law Section
- Executive Committee Member 1996-1997 - Co-chair, Annual Meeting Planning Committee, 1996
District of Columbia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (DCCADV)
- Member, 1988-2009
- Former member of the Board of Directors and founding member of the organization
- Related work included working with advocates to draft and propose Teen Domestic Violence Legislation (2002-2009); designing and conducting training sessions at the DC Police Academy for police officers and new recruits (1992-1994) and Coauthoring, with Professor Catherine Klein, Professor Stacy Brustin, Leslye Orloff, and Lt. David Sargent, The DC Metropolitan Police Training Curriculum on Domestic Violence
Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE)
- Member, 1999-present
- Planner, Regional Conference, New York, NY, May 2006
- Conference Presenter and Post-Conference Planner and Presenter, Third Worldwide Conference,
- Krakow, Poland, July 2004
- Pre-Conference Workshop Planner and Presenter and Conference Small Group Leader, Inaugural
- Worldwide Conference, Trivandrum, India, December 1999
Member, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia Women Law Professors, 1990-1996
District of Columbia Coordinating Council
- Member, 1995-2000
Association of American Law Schools (AALS)
- Section on Clinical Legal Education
- Member since 1988
- Section Chair, 1998; Chair-Elect, 1997
- Immediate Past Chair/Member of the Executive Committee, 1999
- Pincus Award Nominating Committee Member, 2000, 2003
- Cochair, Planning Committee, AALS Annual Meeting, Clinical Section Program, 1995
- Executive Committee Nominating Committee 1992, 1995
Department of Justice Violence Against Women Office
- Expert Peer Reviewer for Grant Applications, 1991-2003
American Bar Association (ABA)
ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar- ABA Law School Accreditation Site Evaluator, April 2001 ; April 2002; March 2003; March 2005; February 2010
- ABA Foreign Law School Program, Accreditation Site Evaluator, July 2009 and July 2010
- Vice-Chair, 2008-present
- Member, 2004-present
- Member, 2002 -2007
- Member, 2003-2005
Co-chair of the Teen Domestic Violence Subcommittee, 1997-1999
Clinical Law Review
- Member of the Editorial Board, January 2008-present
Women Empowered Against Violence (WEAVE)
- Member, Board of Directors, 2000-2002
District of Columbia Bar Association (selected activities)
- Family Law Section, 1989-present; Cochair, Steering Committee, 1991-1992
- Member, Family Law Representation Committee (award-winning committee), 1999-2008; Cochair 2003-2008
- Chair, Pro Bono Custody Training, 2005, 2006
- Member, Court Funding Committee (award-winning committee), 2000-2001
- Custody Training Faculty Member, 1999-2006; Program Chair 2004-2006
- Domestic Violence Training, Faculty Member, 1990-1995; 2000-2002; Cochair 1994; Chair 1995; 2000-2002
- PSAC Pro Bono Mentor, 1993-2000
- Family Law Section Committee on Family Court Rules, 1994