Elissa C. Steglich

Elissa Steglich co-directs and teaches the Immigration Clinic. A Texas Law alum, she served on the Law Review and was co-president of Texas Law Fellowships. She clerked for the Hon. William Wayne Justice of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. She received a BA in English from Haverford College.

Professor Steglich has extensive experience practicing immigration law and has been a strong advocate for immigrant rights, especially the rights of immigrant children. Until June 2015, she was the Legal Services Director at the American Friends Service Committee’s Immigrant Rights Program in Newark, New Jersey. She served as Managing Attorney for the program from 2006-2014. In addition to supervising legal staff, she provided direct representation to asylum seekers, immigrant children, and immigrant victims of violence and human trafficking. She was the Managing Attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, Illinois from 2002-2006, and previously Trafficking Project Officer at DePaul College of Law, where she conducted extensive field research on trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean. Professor Steglich taught Immigration Law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers School of Law in Newark, New Jersey from 2010-2014.

Professor Steglich’s commitment to immigrant rights has been recognized with an “Inspire Award” by Centro Comunitario CEUS and commendation from the NJ General Assembly. Professor Steglich regularly appears in the media and has published several scholarly articles. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and served on the Amicus Committee from 2018-2024. She is currently Vice-Chair of the AILA Law Student Engagement Committee. Professor Steglich is vice-president of the board of the Mabel Center for Immigrant Justice and member of the Advisory Board of the Children's Immigration Law Academy. She was a long-time Board member and past president of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.