Ellen P Chapnick

	Dean for Social Justice Initiatives Office 435 W. 116th Street Box B-26 New York NY 10027 Tel (212) 851-1858 Fax (212) 851-1064 Email chapnick@law.columbia.edu
Assistant Info Name Jane Cooper Phone (212) 851-1929 Email jane.cooper@law.columbia.edu
Ellen P. Chapnick is the Dean for Social Justice Initiatives at Columbia Law School. Her responsibilities include development and implementation of projects that will further Columbia's excellence in preparing the public interest, government and human rights lawyers of the future and projects for Columbia's participation in capacity building in the U.S. and abroad regarding democratic governmental institutions, legal education and civil society. Dean Chapnick joined Columbia as the founder and Dean of its Center for Public Interest Law in 1993 and held that position until July 2003. She also co-teaches the Appellate Court Externship. Prior to Columbia, she was a federal litigator at Wolf Popper Ross Wolf & Jones, a plaintiffs' law firm where, among other matters, she worked on In re Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Litigation, for which she and her co-counsel shared TLPJ's 1995 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award. She also had been a staff attorney at the Puerto Rican Institute for Civil Rights in San Juan and at various labor unions. Dean Chapnick is an honor graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences. Her recent pro bono work includes serving as: President of Legal Services for New York-Bronx; chair and immediate past chair of the Association of American Law Schools' Section on Pro Bono and Public Service Opportunities; and president and immediate past president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Dean Chapnick also has served as Co-Chair of the Court as Employer Committee of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts and on several committees of the New York City Bar Association. Dean Chapnick has received the Association of American Law Schools' Father Robert F. Drinan award, Sanctuary for Families' Abely Pro Bono Achievement Award, Legal Aid Society of New York's award for outstanding pro bono publico service and the Pro Bono Students America award for best Law School public interest program. She is the author of several articles and the Access to the Courts chapter in the American Bar Association's The Law of Environmental Justice.