Marcy L. Karin joined Rutgers Law School in Fall 2025 as a Professor of Law and Director of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Clinic. She trains future lawyers to be ethical, reflective, and effective advocates through hands-on legal work advancing gender justice, particularly around economic security, education, and other civil rights. In addition to clinical teaching, Professor Karin offers courses in Employment Law, Employment Discrimination, Gender and the Law, Reproductive Justice, Disability Law, Legislation, Torts, Service-Learning, and Clinical Pedagogy. 

Professor Karin’s research and advocacy focus on the intersections of gender, workplace, and disability justice—addressing systemic barriers related to menstruation, (peri)menopause, lactation, caregiving, disability, gender-based violence, and military-connectedness. As the 2023 Fulbright-Scotland Distinguished Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, for example, she conducted comparative research on menstrual justice and the legal implications of the menstrual cycle and menopause in Scotland and the UK.  Her recent scholarship also explores topics such as menstrual dignity for bar examinees, workplace protections for menstruators, disabled, and caregiving workers, and the integration of legislative lawyering into law school clinical pedagogy and social justice advocacy.

Before joining Rutgers, Professor Karin served as the Jack and Lovell Olender Professor of Law and Director of the Legislation/Civil Rights Clinic at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Earlier, she was a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Work-Life Law and Policy and Civil Justice Clinics at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

Throughout her career, she has engaged with students and clients on legislative and regulatory advocacy, administrative and civil litigation, and community legal education. This work has advanced paid family and medical leave, unemployment insurance benefits, menstrual equity and education in public spaces and schools, workplace accommodations, wage theft prevention, anti-discrimination protections, crime victims’ compensation, and civil justice for marginalized workers, including military families.

Professor Karin has also served as faculty advisor to student groups such as Law Students for Disability Rights, the Veterans Law Society, the Consumer Advocacy Protection Program, the Family Justice Bus initiative, and Law Review.

Earlier in her career, she was Legislative Counsel at Workplace Flexibility 2010, a Teaching Fellow and Supervising Attorney at Georgetown University Law Center’s Federal Legislation and Administrative Clinic, and an associate at Arent Fox PLLC.

Professor Karin’s contributions have been recognized through numerous awards, including:

• Community Champion Award, DV Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (2021, for “outstanding efforts to address the impact of climate change on domestic violence”)
• Clinical Legal Education Association Award for Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project (2019, for her clinic's menstrual equity policy work with BRAWS)
• Outstanding Clinical Professor Award, UDC Student Bar Association (2018)
• Visionary Award, Corporate Voices for Working Families (2012)
• Sustained Community Service Award, Woodside Foundation (2011, for work with Arizona’s military families)
• Albert E. Arent Pro Bono Award, Arent Fox (2006, for advocacy on domestic violence and D.C. high school outreach)
• Burton Award for Legal Achievement in Writing (2003, for her Stanford Law Review article on executive privilege)