515 Madison Avenue, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10022
Education
Georgetown University Law Center
Class of 2014
Vanderbilt University
Class of 2008
My Scholarly Work
BERKELEY JOURNAL OF EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR LAW
Grappling with Gilmer: Pre-Hire Arbitration Agreements in the Day Labor Industry
Pre-hire arbitration provisions have proliferated in the workplace. In the booming market for temporary low-skill labor-often called "day labor “-firms are able to use these provisions to immunize themselves from many types of lawsuits. The workers who might bring these claims generally earn minimum wage on an hourly basis, with an employment relationship that lasts a single day. As a result, any wage and hour lawsuit they bring is likely to seek a small sum; in such suits the workers' primary goal is not recovery but to effect change in workplace practices. But day labor firms are able to deter such suits by requiring all applicants to waive their rights to bring a class action, to agree to split arbitrators’ fees,which often exceed $400 an hour, and to agree to private arbitration, which diminishes the deterrent effect of adjudication. Reform is needed to end claim suppression and other inequitable effects of forced arbitration.
GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL
Considering a Specialist’s Law Degree to Increase and Improve Representation Among
Immigration Respondents,
American immigration law suffers from a counsel crisis. Vast numbers of immigrants face removal proceedings with no representation, and many more are not adequately served by their attorneys. Immigrants are also regularly defrauded by unlicensed “notarios.” These problems are largely because much of the immigrant population is low-income and cannot afford attorneys’ fees. This paper proposes that the Department of Justice change its regulations to allow for holders of a one-year specialist’s degree in immigration law to practice in immigration court. Such a change would permit law schools to develop a shorter, less costly degree for specialists in immigration law. By reducing the price of education and the opportunity cost of two years of law school, law schools could produce a class of immigration service providers that more immigrants could afford and rely upon. By striking a better balance of education and cost, the DOJ and cooperating law schools could help alleviate the market failure that fuels the immigration counsel crisis.