Lisa Weissman-Ward is a Lecturer in Law and supervising attorney with the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. Lisa supervises clinical law students in their representation of clients facing removal from the United States. She works with students as they engage in legal research and writing and fact development as they develop their cases from initial investigation of the case to final hearings before the immigration courts. Lisa also supervises students as they work on advocacy projects for the purposes of engaging in broader, systemic changes. Lisa co-teaches the clinic’s seminars and workshops, including training on issues related to substantive immigration law, trial preparation, client-centered lawyering, as well as other topics.  Lisa co-authored California’s first report on the impact of counsel in detained removal proceedings before the San Francisco Immigration Courts, Access to Justice for Immigrant Families and Communities: A Study of Legal Representation of Detained Immigrants in Northern California.

Lisa specializes in complex litigation before the national immigration agencies and courts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She has represented individual clients in appeals to and motions before the Board of Immigration Appeals, various Circuit Courts of Appeals, and federal district courts across California. In addition, she has represented individuals in requests for stays of removal and requests for release from custody before Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lisa also specializes in asylum and refugee law as well as in the intersection between criminal and immigration law, and routinely advises non-citizens and criminal defense counsel on matters relating the immigration consequences of criminal arrests and convictions.

Prior to joining the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Lisa worked for seven years with the immigration law firm, Van Der Hout, Brigagliano, and Nightingale, LLP in San Francisco, California and supervised a deportation defense team as a Senior Associate with the firm.  Lisa has also worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, the Latin American Commission on Human Rights and the Environment, and Equal Justice Works.

Lisa is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She also sits on the Board of Directors for Dolores Street Community Services, where she serves as Secretary of the Board and co-chairs the Board’s legal committee.