Jean Lantz Reisz
USC Gould School of Law

Jean Reisz teaches and co-directs the USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic, and teaches the Immigration Detention and Appellate Clinic and the Legal Profession courses. Under her supervision, second- and third-year law students represent individuals in removal proceedings seeking humanitarian forms of relief such as asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture before the Immigration Court, Board of Immigration Appeals, and Federal Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit. Clinic students also represent unlawfully detained immigrants in habeas corpus petitions before the U.S. District Court and noncitizens seeking other immigration relief including Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) immigrant visa petitions, crime victim visas (U visa status petitions), DACA, permanent residence, and citizenship. In addition, Reisz teaches the undergraduate course, LAW 212 - Immigration for a New America.

As co-director of the Immigration Clinic, Reisz oversees the Immigrant Legal Assistance Center, which provides free legal assistance to USC students, faculty, staff and their families, in connection with immigration-related issues. The clinic also partners with AltaMed and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in providing immigration assistance and representation to immigrant children and their families at the medical-legal clinic, La Linterna. Reisz also consults on television and motion picture productions as an immigration expert through the Norman Lear Center, Hollywood Health and Society.

Reisz was a trial attorney for six years at the Los Angeles County Public Defender and Alternate Public Defender handling misdemeanor and felony cases in downtown Los Angeles and Compton. Prior to joining USC Gould, Reisz was a senior associate at Archer Norris, PLC. Reisz joined USC Gould in 2014 as the Audrey Irmas Clinical Teaching Fellow, a position she held for three years. Reisz graduated from USC Gould School of Law. 

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Bloomberg Government
June 22, 2022
Re: Franita Tolson

Franita Tolson was interviewed about how federal lawsuits from North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas test the limits of the Voting Rights Act, the boundaries of state government authority, and the ability of voting rights groups to file racial gerrymandering cases. “These doctrines and approaches in these cases fundamentally reset the rules of the game,” she said. “In 2030 we will live in a completely different world than we lived in in 2020, and 2020 was not favorable to minority voters at all.”

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Robin Craig
March, 2022

"Saltwater Sovereignty: Tribal Marine Management Authority Along the Pacific Coast.” Online Environmental Law Workshop. University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD.

Daniel Klerman
March, 2022

“Comment on Choi, Erickson, & Pritchard, ‘Coalitions among Plaintiffs’ Attorneys in Securities Class Actions’,” Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Virtual, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Robin Craig
March, 2022

“Who’s on First? The Mind-Blowing Attempt to Conceptualize Deference in the Midst of Decision Delays and Agency Repeals,” J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium for the George Washington University School of Law, Virtual, Washington, D.C.