Joanne Gottesman
Director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic, and Associate Professor of Law
Joanne Gottesman's scholarship raises questions about states’ obligations to noncitizen residents and focuses on issues at the intersections of the child welfare, criminal, and immigration legal systems.
Biography
Professor Gottesman co-directed the Rutgers Civil Practice Clinic for a decade before founding the Immigrant Justice Clinic in 2012. Her scholarship raises questions about states’ obligations to noncitizen residents and focuses on issues at the intersections of the child welfare, criminal, and immigration legal systems. She is the author of the first practice guide to analyze how various New Jersey offenses would be categorized under the federal immigration statute.
Since 2016, Professor Gottesman has co-directed a statewide project, funded by the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, to represent children in foster care in New Jersey in their immigration matters. The project serves 175 children at any given time and has served as a model for other jurisdictions.
Professor Gottesman graduated from Wesleyan University and received her J.D. from Columbia Law School. Before attending law school, she spent three years working and studying in China.
Publications
Immigration Federalism and the Promise of State Constitutions, 30 LEWIS & CLARK L. REV. ___ (forthcoming 2026)
Permanency Means Immigration Permanency: Why Child Welfare Agencies Must Appoint Immigration Lawyers for Children in Foster Care (with Randi Mandelbaum) 59 U.C. DAVIS. L. REV. ___ (forthcoming 2025)
Children, Culpability, and Conduct-Based Inadmissibility in Immigration Law, 98 TUL. L. REV. 65 (2023), reprinted in 25-02 IMMIGR. BRIEFINGS 1 (2025)
Courthouses Should be Safe Places for Everyone, Newark Star-Ledger (June 25, 2019) available at: https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/06/courthouses-should-be-safe-places-for-everyone-including-immigrants-who-may-not-be-here-legally-professor-says.html
A Pathway to Permanency: Collaborating for the Futures of Children Who are Immigrants in the Child Welfare System (with Randi Mandelbaum & Meredith Pindar), 96 CHILD WELFARE L. J. 25 (2018)
Responding to the Child Migration Crisis, NEW JERSEY LAWYER (February, 2017) (with Anju Gupta & Randi Mandelbaum)
Avoiding the “Secret Sentence:” A Model for Ensuring that New Jersey Criminal Defendants Are Advised About Immigration Consequences Before Entering Guilty Pleas.” 33 Seton Hall Legis. J. 357 (2009)
The Immigration Consequences of Select New Jersey Criminal Offenses (2003, revised 2005, partial revision of Controlled Substance Offenses, 2008). Practice guide analyzing how New Jersey offenses would be categorized under the federal immigration statute. Distributed by the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts to all Criminal Court judges in New Jersey via Directive #08-09, and to all public defenders by the Office of the New Jersey Public Defender. Disseminated via the websites of The Immigrant Defense Project, The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.