Clinical Law Program People

Clinic Faculty

Kimberly Ambrose

Law Lecturer

Kimberly Ambrose is a lecturer and supervising attorney for the Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic (CAYAC). She joined the clinic faculty part time in 2001 and full time in 2005. Before joining the faculty, she helped create and direct the Immigrant Child Advocacy Project through the Seattle University Law School Access to Justice Institute. She spent several years as a public defender representing indigent adults and juveniles in both child welfare and criminal proceedings. After graduating from the UW School of Law in 1989, Professor Ambrose clerked for U.S. District Judge David Ezra in the District of Hawaii and then worked in a private civil practice. She has also worked as a resource attorney for the Washington Defender Association, providing training, technical assistance, and resources to public defense attorneys around Washington state. Professor Ambrose has published several articles and resource materials for public defense attorneys including Beyond the Conviction: What Defense Attorneys in Washington State Need to Know About Collateral and Other Non-Confinement Consequences of Criminal Convictions (Washington Defender Association 2004) and Beyond Juvenile Court: Long-Term Impact of a Juvenile Record (Washington Defender Association 2005). Professor Ambrose also created and directs the Juvenile Records Sealing Clinic, staffed by student volunteers from the UW Street Youth Legal Advocates of Washington.

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The Hon. Bobbe Bridge (Ret.)

Part-time Lecturer

Phone: (206) 543-3434

Justice Bobbe J. Bridge (ret.), is the Founding President of the Center for Children and Youth Justice, established by Justice Bridge and her husband Jon. Prior to her retirement, Justice Bridge served for nine years on the Washington State Supreme Court. Before her elevation to the Supreme Court, Justice Bridge served as a Judge for King County Superior Court for ten years. During that time, she was active in judicial administration, as Presiding Judge, Assistant Presiding Judge, and Chief Judge of King County Juvenile Court, President of the Superior Court Judges’ Association, and by chairing numerous committees. Justice Bridge has been particularly active in efforts to improve the administration of justice for children and families.

Justice Bridge is a tireless and active community volunteer. Her awards and honors for service to the judiciary and the community are too numerous to list. They include the University of Washington School of Law Distinguished Alumna for 2001 and judge of the year awards from the Washington State Bar Association Family Law Section, the King County Bar Association and the Washington Women Lawyers honored her as Judge of the Year in 1996.

Justice Bridge received her B. A. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Washington, her MA and her Ph.C in Political Science at the University of Michigan. She received her J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law in 1976, where she was a member of the Law Review and served as its Notes and Comments Editor. After graduating from law school, she joined the law firm of Garvey Schubert and Barer, where she remained until 1990 specializing in the fields of administrative law, litigation, government relations, and domestic relations.

John Clynch

Staff Attorney
Staff Attorney, Federal Tax Clinic

Prior to his position as Staff Attorney for the Federal Tax Clinic, John practiced law as a public defender for Society of Counsel Representing Accused Person and The Defender Association, and as a contract attorney for various firms including Preston, Gates and Ellis. He also worked as an associate for Deloitte Tax. While in the LL.M. program, John worked as research assistant to Dean Emeritus Roland Hjorth, and was named the Deloitte and Touche Scholar. John is on the board of the WSBA Tax Counsel as chair of the Pro Bono Committee, and on the board of the downtown Seattle YMCA as chair of the Membership Committee. 

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Molly Cohan

Supervising Attorney/Lecturer
Law Lecturer

Molly M. Cohan is the Supervising Attorney for the Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic at the University of Washington School of Law. She has extensive experience in Criminal law with a particular interest in training, cultural competence, and tribal criminal defense. Molly worked at The Defender Association in Seattle for 27 years in a variety of staff and supervisory positions. She has practiced in the areas of misdemeanors, felonies, juvenile, BECCA, and dependencies. Molly has also done pro bono work with the Navajo Public Defender and in Chehalis and Suquamish Tribal Courts. Immediately prior to coming to the Law School, she was the Training Coordinator for the Washington Defender Association.

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William Covington

Director, Technology Law & Public Policy Clinic
Assistant Professor of Law

Professor Covington joined the UW law school faculty in 2003 as an Assistant Professor and Director of the Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic. Prior to his selection as clinic director, Professor Covington was a principal at the North Star Group consulting firm where he worked with municipalities on land use legislation, infrastructure development, and taxation policies applicable to high tech businesses. Ten years of service with McCaw Cellular Communications (now Cingular) and previous work as regulatory counsel for Group W Cable (now Comcast) provided him with a wealth of in-depth experience in the field of telecommunications law and policy. While at AT&T Wireless, Professor Covington led that company's efforts in areas ranging from developing and complying with E-911 requirements to establishing state taxation policies. He has articulated policy positions on behalf of the cable television and cellular telephony industries to state public service commissions and the Federal Communications Commission on broadband policy, land use matters and incentive subsidies. During the past four years, Professor Covington has served as an instructor at the community college level, developed legal courses for college students, and taught seminars for foreign M.B.A. candidates interested in U.S. policies on the creation of high tech industries and the delivery of services.

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Signe Dortch

Senior Lecturer
Senior Law Lecturer

An alumna of the University of Washington Immigration Law Clinic, Signe Dortch has dedicated her legal career to defending immigrants and refugees. She worked as a staff attorney at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) from 1999 until 2002, representing immigrant survivors of domestic violence. From 2002 to 2007, she worked as an associate attorney at Gibbs Houston Pauw. There, Dortch represented clients in removal cases before the Immigration Court and in appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She also represented clients in filing affirmative applications with the Department of Homeland Security. Dortch has presented at many conferences on, among other topics, immigration options for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, asylum law, and relief for long-time lawful permanent residents facing removal from the U.S. In 1998, she was named NWIRP's Student Volunteer of the Year. In 2004, Dortch, along with other members of the Laura Luis Hernandez defense team, was awarded the Daniel Levy Award by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. In 2005, she was an inaugural inductee into the UW Public Interest Law Association Hall of Fame. Dortch holds a B.A. from Willamette University and a J.D. from the University of Washington. She is a member of the Washington State Bar, and is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

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Jennifer Fan

Managing Director, Entrepreneurial Law Clinic

Jennifer Fan is a lecturer and Managing Director for the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic. She joined the clinical faculty in 2010. Before joining the faculty, she was a senior associate in the corporate securities group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Professor Fan was also the inaugural director of the Pro Bono Program of the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law at Stanford Law School. Previously, she served as the Vice President and Director of Legal Affairs of the Asian Pacific Fund, a community foundation serving the Asian American community in the Bay Area. Professor Fan is admitted to practice in California, New York and Washington.

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Julia Gold

Director, Mediation Clinic
Senior Law Lecturer

Professor Gold joined the UW law school faculty in 1995 as a Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of the Mediation Clinic. She teaches the Mediation Clinic, the 36-hour Mediation Skills CLE program offered by the School of Law, Negotiation, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Street Law. Before joining the faculty, Professor Gold founded and directed the Mediation Clinic at the University of Oregon School of Law in Eugene.

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Lisa Kelly

Director, Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic
Professor of Law

Professor Kelly came to the UW in 2002 as a Distinguished Visitor and then joined the UW law school faculty in 2002. She directs the Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic and teaches Family Law and Child Advocacy. She is the co-author of Adoption Law: Theory, Policy and Practice (2006). She works closely with the Court Improvement Training Academy. Professor Kelly chairs the Statewide Children's Representation Workgroup established by the Washington Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care. She is the Bobbe and Jon Bridge Endowed Professor of Child Advocacy and served as Associate Dean at the UW Law School from 2007-2009.

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Alan Kirtley

Associate Professor of Law

Professor Alan Kirtley is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law and founding director of its Clinical Law Program. He received both his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Indiana University in Bloomington. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School and Ohio State University College of Law.

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Deborah Maranville

Director, Clinical Law Program
Professor of Law

Professor Maranville joined the UW law school faculty in 1989 to help develop the clinical law program. She is now the director of clinical programs at the law school, directing the Unemployment Compensation Clinic and teaching the Access to Justice Seminar and two Legal Analysis Research and Writing Public Service capstones for 1Ls. She has also taught Feminist Legal Theory and Civil Procedure. While practicing poverty law from 1975-81 with legal services organizations in Seattle, Professor Maranville developed a specialty in public benefits cases and handled numerous class action lawsuits and individual administrative hearings and appeals. She then taught Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, and Trial Advocacy at the University of Puget Sound Law School.

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Jacqueline McMurtrie

Director, Innocence Project Northwest
Associate Professor of Law

Jacqueline McMurtrie joined the University of Washington School of Law faculty in 1989 to teach the Criminal Law Clinic after a career as a public defender. She has taught Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Evidence and founded the Innocence Project Northwest (IPNW) Clinic. Since its formation in 1997, the IPNW has overturned the convictions of thirteen wrongly convicted inmates. Professor McMurtrie's research and teaching interests revolve primarily around criminal law and appellate/post-conviction practice, with a particular emphasis on wrongful convictions. She is on the Board of the Integrity of Justice Project, a non-profit that furthers policy changes to avoid erroneous convictions. She has received awards from the Washington Defender Association, Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Law Journal for her work with the IPNW. She has been recognized as a Philip A. Trautman Teacher of the Year and the received a Pacific Coast Banking Faculty Service Award. Professor McMurtrie obtained her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan.

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Sean O'Connor

Faculty Director, Law, Business & Entrepreneurship Program
Professor of Law

Sean O'Connor is Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Law, Business & Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. His research focuses on how legal structures and strategies facilitate innovation. His teaching and law practice specialize in transactions and the role of the general counsel in start-up companies. Professor O'Connor received his law degree from Stanford Law School, a master's degree in philosophy from Arizona State University, and a bachelor's degree in history from University of Massachusetts. He is currently working on Methodology: Art, Science, Technology, Law, and the Means of Innovation to be published by Oxford University Press.

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Scott Schumacher

Director, Federal Tax Clinic
Associate Professor of Law

Professor Schumacher teaches courses in the Graduate Program in Taxation. He is also the Director of the Law School's Federal Tax Clinic. Prior to joining the UW law school faculty full-time 2001, he was an attorney with Chicoine & Hallett, P.S., in Seattle, where his practice focused on civil and criminal tax controversy and litigation. He also served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division and an attorney-advisor to the Hon. Arthur L. Nims, III, Chief Judge of the U.S. Tax Court. He is admitted to the bars in Washington state, the U.S. Supreme Court, and numerous federal courts.

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Casey Trupin

Part-time Lecturer

Phone: (206) 287-9665
Email:

Casey Trupin is an attorney at Columbia Legal Services where he has focused on helping homeless youth, a journey that began when he was a law student at the University of Washington. During his tenure at UW, Casey helped found the Street Youth Legal Advocates of Washington (SYLAW) program, a volunteer organization based at the law school that advocates for homeless and at-risk youth through education and legal representation, and received a Public Interest Law Association (PILA) grant for his summer work with SYLAW. Following graduation, as an Equal Justice Works Fellow, Casey continued to develop and expand the SYLAW program, serving hundreds of clients and attracting national attention. The program has been recognized by the American Bar Association's Center on Children in the Law as a model program. Casey has also received several awards for his work, including, the Congressional Angel in Adoption Award. He currently serves on the board of the American Bar Association's Commission on Homelessness and Poverty. He was one of the original inductees into the UW Law School’s PILA Hall of Fame in 2006.

Ron Whitener

Director, Tribal Court Criminal Defense Clinic
Executive Director, Native American Law Center
Senior Law Lecturer

Professor Whitener is an Assistant Professor of Law at the UW School of Law where he is Director of the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic and Assistant Director of the Native American Law Center.

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Brenda Williams

Law Lecturer

Brenda Williams is a Part-Time Lecturer at the Law School and is a Clinic Supervisor in the Tribal Court Public Defense Clinic. Prior to joining the faculty, she served for 10 years as a public defender at The Defender Association in Seattle representing clients in all areas of public defense, including juvenile and dependency proceedings. In addition to her law degree, Professor Williams received her Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs, where she focused on policy work within the criminal justice system. 

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Clinic Staff

• Harold Daniels
  Phone: (206) 543-3434
  Email:
• Robin Gianattasio
  Phone: (206) 543-3434
  Email:
• Carrie Gaasland
  Phone: (206) 543-3434
  Email: