Jamie Abrams
Legal Rhetoric Instructor
Office: Room 129E
Phone: 202-274-4302
E-mail: jabrams@wcl.american.edu
Jamie R. Abrams is a full-time instructor in the Legal Rhetoric Program at the Washington College of Law and the Coordinator of Legal Research. She first joined the faculty of the Legal Rhetoric Program in the Fall of 2006 as an Adjunct Instructor. Prior to joining the faculty full-time, Ms. Abrams was a Litigation Associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP where she specialized in complex civil litigation matters. She represented clients in various state and federal courts in a range of substantive areas, including accounting malpractice, products liability, wage and employment, contract disputes, and third-party discovery claims. She also served on Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP's Women's Initiative Committee and its Community Foundation Advisory Committee. As an associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Ms. Abrams was profiled in the American Bar Association Journal in a piece titled "Coach Me, How 3 Lawyers Learned to be All-Stars at Climbing the Corporate Ladder, Making Rain, Marketing their Practice.” Ms. Abrams began her career at Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. specializing in white collar criminal defense and environmental law.
Ms. Abrams has also devoted much of her practice to pro bono cases and community activism. She has represented petitioners seeking civil protection orders in D.C. Superior Court and advised pro se petitioners in the clinical setting, counseled Open Arms Housing (a developing not-for-profit organization seeking to provide housing to mentally-ill homeless women), and represented immigrants women in "U" Visa and Violence Against Women Act petitions.
Ms. Abrams graduated summa cum laude from American University, Washington College of Law in 2002. While a student at American University, Ms. Abrams was a recipient of the Mussey Gillet Fellowship, served as Notes and Comments Editor on the International Law Review, and performed in student productions of the Law Revue and the Vagina Monologues. She received her B.A., cum laude, in political science and criminal justice from Indiana University in 1999.
She is admitted to practice in Maryland, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia and an active member of the D.C. Women’s Bar Association. She is a member of the Legal Writing Institute, an Assistant Editor for the Legal Writing Institute’s Journal of Legal Writing, and a member of Academics Promoting the Pedagogy of Effective Advocacy in Law.
Currently Teaching
Degrees & Universities
- J.D., American University Washington College of Law 2002 (summa cum laude)
- B.A., Indiana University at Bloomington 1999
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Selected Publications- Jamie Abrams, Legal Protections for an Invisible Population: An Eligibility and Impact Analysis of U Visa Protections for Immigrant Victims of Domestic Violence, 4 Modern Am. 1 (Spring 2008).
- Jamie Abrams, Gone but Not Forgotten: Leaving Your Job, Not Your Professional Reputation, 12:3 Young Law (Dec. 2007).
- Jamie Abrams, Innovative New Program Offers Area Law Students Critical Insights Into Creating Own Pathways to Success, WBA Raising the Bar (Fall 2006).
- Jamie Abrams, Creating Pathways to Success, Reporter’s Committee for the WBA Initiative on the Advancement and Retention of Women (2006).
- John N. Hanson & Jamie R. Abrams, Compassionate Conservatism: Friend or Foe of the Environment?, 31 St. B. Tex. Envtl. L.J. 173 (2000 - 2001).
