Board Member Michael J. Wishnie is William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law and Deputy Dean for Experiential Education at Yale Law School. Mike’s teaching, scholarship, and law practice have focused on immigration, labor and employment, habeas corpus, voting rights, government transparency, and veterans law. For years, Mike and his students have represented low-wage workers, immigrants, voters, and veterans in federal, state, and administrative litigation. He and his students have also represented unions, churches, veterans’ groups, and grassroots organizations in a range of legislative, media, and community education matters.
Mike’s recent publications include “Call Air Traffic Control! Confronting Crisis as Lawyers and Teachers” (with Muneer Ahmad), in Ray Brescia & Eric K. Stern, eds., CRISIS LAWYERING: EFFECTIVE LEGAL ADVOCACY IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS (NYU Press: 2021) and “‘A Boy Gets Into Trouble’: Service Members, Civil Rights, and Veterans’ Law Exceptionalism,” 97 B.U. L. REV. 1709 (2017).
From 1998-2006, Mike taught at New York University School of Law. Previously, he worked at the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project as a Skadden Fellow; in the Brooklyn Neighborhood Office of The Legal Aid Society; as a law clerk to Judge H. Lee Sarokin of the District Court of New Jersey and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; and as a clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun, retired, working in the chambers of Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States. Before earning his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1993, Mike spent two years teaching in the People’s Republic of China.
