Joan S. Meier

Joan Meier is the National Family Violence Law Center Professor of Clinical Law and Director of the National Family Violence Law Center at the George Washington University Law School. Professor Meier has been a clinical law professor for 34 years at GW Law, where she founded three pioneering and nationally recognized interdisciplinary domestic violence clinical programs. She has published widely on domestic violence, child custody, social science and law, clinical teaching, and various Supreme Court decisions. Her five-year empirical study, "Child Custody Outcomes in Cases Involving Parental Alienation and Abuse Allegations,” funded by the National Institute of Justice, was completed in 2019. Its findings have been written about in scholarship and multiple media outlets including The Washington Post and The New Yorker.

Professor Meier founded the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DV LEAP) in 2003 to provide pro bono appeals in domestic violence cases. While at DV LEAP, she was the co-author of eleven amicus briefs and three party briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. She also represented domestic violence organizations and survivors of domestic violence in state court appeals all over the country and in Washington, DC. Both while at DV LEAP and since, Professor Meier has provided hundreds of trainings for judges, psychologists, lawyers, domestic violence coalitions, and others on best practices in adjudication of domestic violence and family court litigation and on her empirical research.

In August 2019, Professor Meier stepped down from DV LEAP and launched the National Family Violence Law Center at GW Law. The NFVLC is the only national organization specializing in both domestic violence and child abuse; it focuses on improving court responses to such cases through professional curricula and trainings, amicus briefs, and policy consultation.

Professor Meier has received several awards, including among others, the American Professional Society on Abuse of Children (APSAC) David Chadwick Outstanding Professional Award for her family court research; the American Bar Association’s first ever Sharon L. Corbitt Award, which recognizes exceptional service and leadership in improving the legal response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and/or stalking; and the Outstanding Leadership Award from Justice for Children. Professor Meier also received the Cahn Award from the National Equal Justice Library for her article on domestic violence and welfare reform.

She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1980, cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and clerked on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
 

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