Dehlia Umunna was appointed Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (HLS), thus becoming the first Nigerian to achieve the feat.

Umunna-DehliaDehlia Umunna is a 43-year-old Nigerian woman, who knows her onions and is well seasoned in her chosen legal profession as she is one of Harvard Law School’s best.

Details of her exploits are celebrated in Harvard Law School’s official website, www.law.harvard.edu.

According to the website, she has been a lecturer at Harvard Law School (HLS) since 2007. She is also the Deputy Director and Clinical Instructor Criminal Justice Institute (CJI) of HLS, where she supervises third-year law students in their representation of adult and juvenile clients in criminal and juvenile proceedings and arguments before Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals court.

Umunna is renowned for providing classroom instruction on legal skills and the application of criminal law, procedure, rules of evidence, motions and trial practice, and constitutional protections to the development of defensce strategy. She also coaches HLS teams at the National Criminal Justice Trial Advocacy and the HLS BLSA Trial team. Both teams have won numerous national and regional awards.

Her colleague, the dean of Harvard Law School, Martha Minow has this to say; “Dehlia’s students revere her; her colleagues at HLS and nationally look to her as an exemplary advocate, teacher, and mentor. From her unprecedented win record in criminal defense trials, her deft leadership of the Criminal Justice Institute day-to-day, and her superb coaching of student moot court teams, her published scholarship, to her numerous awards in recognition of her outstanding work as a criminal defence attorney, advisor, and teacher, Dehlia is simply extraordinary, an inspiration to her students and her clients in every way. It is a true privilege to be her colleague.”

Prior to her joining Harvard Law School, Umunna spent seven years as a trial attorney with the D.C. Public Defender Service and an adjunct professor of law and Practitioner in Residence at the Washington College of Law, American University. She was also a board member of the District of Columbia Law Students in Court Clinic and was a guest lecturer for several years at the George Washington University Law School.

At Public Defender Service, she represented indigent clients in hundreds of cases that ranged in seriousness from misdemeanor charges of theft, assault, and drug possession, to felony charges of narcotics distribution; firearms possession; armed robbery; kidnapping; child sexual abuse; rape and homicide. Some of her cases received nationwide media attention. She was a felony one trial attorney, representing clients in the most serious of felonies and serving as lead counsel in many trials at Public Defender Service. She also served as a presenter in training attorneys under the Criminal Justice Act and supervised junior attorneys in trial.

From 2002 to 2007, while she was adjunct professor of law at American University, Washington College of Law, she created and taught a seminar entitled “The Lawyer’s Role in the Judicial Practice.” While at Washington College, she was also a supervising attorney and practitioner-in-residence in the Civil Practice Clinic.

She supervised second and third year students in a general civil practice clinic representing low income clients in state and federal courts and administrative agencies in the District of Columbia and Maryland. She also taught a clinical seminar on lawyering values, including interviewing, case theory, fact investigation, strategic planning, counselling, negotiation and trial skills.

She is the author of the article, “Rethinking the Neighbourhood Watch: How Lessons from the Nigerian Village Can Creatively Empower the Community to Assist Poor, Single Mothers in America,” published in the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law.

Revealing how privileged she feels to be a part of Harvard Law School and attain the feat of Clinical Professor of Law, she said, “I am blessed and honored to join Harvard Law School’s remarkable faculty. I relish this extraordinary opportunity to continue work that I am truly passionate about, and I am grateful for the deep interest and commitment of the school to issues of criminal justice, mass incarceration, indigent defense and social justice.”

Umunna currently serves as a faculty member for the Southern Public Defender’s Training Center (SPDTC) and she is a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise, she is a frequent presenter at Public Defender trainings across the country and is the recipient of SPDTC’s 2011 “Outstanding Faculty Mentor of the year Award.”

She is a member of the Massachusetts, Maryland, District of Columbia and New Jersey bar associations. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from California State University, San Bernardino, and earned her law degree from the George Washington University Law School. She also holds a Masters in Public Administration (MC) from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She has two kids – Ifeanyi and Edozie.
http://tellmystory.com.ng/meet-dehlia-umunna-the-first-nigerian-professor-of-law-at-harvard-law-school/

Igbo women making us proud.

Proudly Igbo.

Igbo Amaka.

#RESPECT

She is first and foremost a NIGERIAN.

What is it with this tribalistic-disease our politicians have given us?!

It's so irritating reading ALL the comments all around me.

I AM A NIGERIAN!
SHE IS A NIGERIAN!!
WE ARE ALL NIGERIANS!!!

Wow.





Igbo kwenu,Igbo Amaka.

Evablizin:
Wow.





Igbo kwenu,Igbo Amaka.

What is the meaning of Igbo Amaka sef?

HungerBAD:


What is the meaning of Igbo Amaka sef?

Igbo is beautiful or Igbo too fine.

Evablizin:
Igbo is beautiful or Igbo too fine.

True that.

Wow so good that Nigerians are going places.Government abeg our education system is in a bad state please budget high for education so that we would not be recording a lot of brain drain in the country so that people like this wonderful madam would bring their wealth of knowledge home.

Ladyhippolyta88:
Wow so good that Nigerians are going places.Government abeg our education system is in a bad state please budget high for education so that we would not be recording a lot of brain drain in the country so that people like this wonderful madam would bring their wealth of knowledge home.

The only sensible comment so far.
Blacks excited over something that they have contributed little or nothing to.
Is Harvard university in SE or even in Nigeria
Does this news make SE governors like Okorocha to clear the arrears of salaries and pensions owed for several months and years?
When shall we be wise?

Good one from the Ndigbo...

If i say my mind now...they will ban me.


Well, Even before opening the thread....I knew it's my sister.

Thank you Umunna..continue making us proud.

Igbo Amaka koh Igbo Buhari nii


Nice one jaare, Nigerian Prof

Nwaohafia1:


you have started again. which Nigerian, he's an IGBO man, biko.

Smh

See your life ? You didn't even read the post.

She's a Nigerian woman

positivelord:


So its Nigerian Prof now...if its drug related crime will say that

Yes, because One Nigeria

Great Feat. Congrats to her

Congratulations

NA we we
Five fingers in the air for my tribe, making us proud since day one.
IGBO AMAKA
IGBO NWERE MMADU
IGBOTIC

Go madam! Continue to make African women proud

DaddyKross:
Igbo Amaka koh Igbo Buhari nii


Nice one jaare, Nigerian Prof

you have started again. which Nigerian, she's an IGBO woman, biko.

5

Wr need to b known for sth more than just corruption n internet fraud..Nigerian Prince..
Weldone Sir!!

Good for him

Igbos again?

We are not arrogant,we are simply the best.

Igbo Amaka.

THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN

Israelite will not allow us here word again today

NCAN Okoko zone reporting from Ojota

Igbo bu igbo!!! Igbo amaka.

Cha Cha Cha, Igbo kwenu!!!

Ya gaziri, nwafor igbo niile.

HungerBAD:
Igbo women making us proud.

Proudly Igbo.

Igbo Amaka.

Sai babarians are busy supporting herdsmen upandan.

Lzaa onyeoga

DaddyKross:
Igbo Amaka koh Igbo Buhari nii


Nice one jaare, Nigerian Prof

So its Nigerian Prof now...if its drug related crime will say that

;Dmore of this and less of ill news

While my yoloba neighbours are busy celebrating a dullard in Lagos..

By the time Nigeria realizes what she is doing to herself with the amount of brain drain from this country ehn, it would have been too late.
Buhari will soon die, and will not live to suffer the consequences of his actions. The youths who continue to support him will with their children, suffer the consequences.

If you have your way, leave Nigeria and never return.

Igbo are not relevant to shithole country according to vultures from the pit of hell. but we see them making progress daily in developed countries. while afonja and their masters are there hating.

The eggheads in our Nigerian University System would not have allowed this Star shine back home. Now we all have to celebrate this feat...our very own but from afar.