The Clinical Program currently employs nine Practitioners-in-Residence, who represent a wide variety of subject matter expertise and types of practice experience. Our students benefit from being mentored by Practitioners who have recently been engaged in practice outside the academic setting. Our Practitioners pass along their skills and values to our students by modeling good habits, encouraging students to find their passion and potential, emphasizing the importance of creativity and collaboration, and cultivating a public service ethic in the next generation of attorneys.
Jessica Harris is the Practitioner-in-Residence of the Janet R. Spragens Federal Tax Clinic. Prior to joining American University, Professor Harris was the Director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic with Legal Services of Northern Virginia. While as a Director, she represented low-income taxpayers with their tax disputes with the IRS and the State of Virginia. Professor Harris also provided educational presentations and resources to the surrounding communities on relevant tax issues, tax rights and tax benefits. While at Legal Services of Northern Virginia, Professor Harris also practiced in family, landlord/tenant, consumer, bankruptcy, and unemployment law. As a staff attorney, she represented clients in circuit court, district court, federal court, and administrative hearings and provided educational presentations on multiple areas of law. Professor Harris received her J.D. from Charleston School of Law and her B.S. from North Carolina A&T State University.
Mariam Hinds is a Practitioner-in-Residence with the Criminal Justice Clinic at American University Washington College of Law. Prior to joining WCL, Professor Hinds was a Principal at The Wren Collective where she provided strategic advising for elected officials, grassroots organizations, and professional athletes on criminal justice reform and police reform issues. Before Wren, Professor Hinds was a supervising attorney and team leader in the Criminal Defense Practice at The Bronx Defenders. Immediately following law school, Professor Hinds clerked for the Honorable Cheryl L. Pollak of the Eastern District of New York.
Professor Hinds received her J.D. from Stanford Law School where she was the recipient of the Gerald Gunther Prize for outstanding performance in Constitutional Law: Fourteenth Amendment and the John H. Ely Prize for outstanding performance in Juvenile Justice and Social Policy. Professor Hinds holds a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University where she graduated cum laude and with distinction in her major.
Jeffrey Archer Miller is a Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence and acting director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law. He is currently on leave from his position as an assistant professor in the Department of Business at Gallaudet University, where he teaches disability rights law, business law, and international business in American Sign Language to a predominately deaf student body.
Shortly after graduating from law school, he founded the Law Offices of J. Archer Miller, a solo law practice in which he represented plaintiffs alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and federal employment antidiscrimination law. He later joined a Baltimore-based law firm, Callegary & Steedman, PA, where he focused on direct client representation in special education and guardianship matters.
Olinda Moyd is a Distinguished Professor in Residence and Director of the Re-Entry Clinic. She was previously an Adjunct Professor and Supervising Attorney for the Re-Entry Clinic at the Howard University, School of Law. Prior to joining the Howard Law faculty, Professor Moyd was Chief Attorney of the Parole Division at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she was employed for three decades. During her tenure, Professor Moyd provided direct representation to numerous individuals, both at administrative hearings and at proceedings in D.C. Superior Court and the United States District Court.
Professor Moyd serves on the Law Clinic Kuje Prison Advisory Committee with several other law school clinicians. This professional clinical advisory team provides mentorship and guidance to the Law Clinic Partnership. Through service on this committee, she has trained law students and clinicians at three law schools in Abuja, Nigeria as they provide legal aid services to detainees awaiting trial at Kuje Prison. She also serves on several boards, including the D.C. Council for Court Excellence, The Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform and Panacea Media Humanized, a media format to build spaces for constructive dialogue to showcase humane solutions.
Citlalli Ochoa is Practitioner-in-Residence with the International Human Rights Law Clinic (IHRLC). Professor Ochoa is particularly interested in the implementation of international human rights protections to prevent, stop, and remedy fundamental rights' violations at the domestic level.
Prior to joining the IHRLC, Professor Ochoa was an employment law staff attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, where she provided holistic, community-based legal services to low-income workers. She has served as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, where she designed and taught a Workers’ Rights Clinic. Professor Ochoa began her legal career as a fellow and then staff attorney with the International Justice Resource Center, conducting advocacy to advance the expansive interpretation of human rights law and ensure the transparent and independent functioning of human rights oversight bodies. She has also clerked at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression.
Professor Ochoa holds a J.D. from University of California, Irvine School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science/International Relations from University of California, Santa Barbara.
Practioner-in-Residence Professor Nicolas Palazzo is a Practitioner in Residence with the Immigrant Justice Clinic of the American University Washington College of Law. He co-teaches the Immigrant Justice Clinic seminar and supervises law students representing clients in a variety of immigration-related cases concerning asylum, adjustment of status, naturalization, U and T Visas, and Temporary Protected Status. Prof. Palazzo’s academic research focuses on expulsion or refoulement policies and international law on the US-Mexico border. Prior to becoming a Practitioner in Residence, Prof. Palazzo was Managing Attorney with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center (LAIAC) in El Paso, Texas. During his time with LAIAC, he cofounded and directed the first bi-national immigration legal services non-profit in the New Mexico and West Texas region. Prior to joining LAIAC, Prof. Palazzo was a Senior Staff Attorney with Housing Conversation Coordinators representing low income tenants in eviction proceedings in New York City Housing Court. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. with Honors from Stanford University.
Charles Ross is the Practitioner-in-Residence in the Community Economic and Equity Development Clinic, a clinic representing businesses, workers' cooperatives, housing cooperatives, and nonprofit organizations in the District of Columbia and Maryland. Professor Ross’ areas of expertise and scholarly interests include housing law, child welfare law, and small business law.
Professor Ross is a community lawyer who formed his law firm, Charles Ross Law, PLLC in March 2022. Prior to joining WCL, Professor Ross practiced in Los Angeles, California as at Public Counsel and in the District of Columbia at Children’s Law Center. As a member Public Counsel’s Homelessness Prevention Project, he represented clients facing eviction and tenant’s unions in East Los Angeles, Compton, and Inglewood. He hosted Know Your Rights workshops, informing communities of their rights under California’s COVID-19 tenant protections. Professor Ross represented children and families in child welfare proceedings while working at Children’s Law Center. During his time at CLC, he served as a Guardian ad litem attorney, representing children in abuse and neglect, guardianship, and adoption matters. Charles is a founding member of the Brown Bag Project, a community-based organization that supports people experiencing homelessness.
Tracie Siddiqui is a Practitioner-in-Residence in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. Most recently, Tracie was an Attorney Advisor in the Intellectual Property Enforcement Branch at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where her practice focused on anti-counterfeiting. Prior to CBP, Tracie was Vice President & Senior Counsel, Global Intellectual Property at Marriott International, where she managed trademark transactional and enforcement matters for the company’s well-known hotel brands around the world. Before her work as an in-house counsel, Tracie was a senior associate in Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP’s trademark and copyright group, focusing on domestic and international trademark counseling, transactions, and portfolio management. Tracie received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma.
Rangeley Wallace has served on the Clinical Program faculty for many years, and she is teaching in the Civil Advocacy Clinic in Fall 2021. She has also been a Practitioner in Residence with the Disability Rights Law Clinic. Ms. Wallace has previously served as an instructor in the Legal Rhetoric Program. Ms. Wallace has worked in several diverse fields since graduating from the Washington College of Law in 1975 and is a published novelist. She spent a year as a graduate fellow at the Institute for Public Interest Representation at Georgetown Law Center. She has been in private practice, where she specialized in federal agency litigation and federal court litigation and appellate practice. Ms. Wallace also was an attorney in the Department of Justice, first in the Antitrust Division and thereafter in the appellate section of the Criminal Division.
