Biography of Lee Gelernt

Mr. Gelernt is a Deputy Director of the Immigrants' Rights Project and has been with the Project since 1992. He has litigated numerous impact cases around the country at all levels of the federal court system, including in the United States Supreme Court. Among the cases he has argued are Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft and North Jersey Media Group v. Ashcroft, which involved challenges to the government's post-September 11 policy of holding secret deportation hearings. Mr. Gelernt has received numerous honors for his civil rights work and in 2002 was the recipient of the13th Annual Public Interest Achievement Award from the Columbia University Public Interest Law Foundation. He has also twice been given the American Immigration Lawyer's national award for excellence in litigation. Mr. Gelernt is a frequent speaker at law schools and conferences around the country, is regularly quoted in the national and international media, and currently serves on the faculty of the Practicing Law Institute. In addition to his work at the ACLU, Mr. Gelernt is an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School, where he has taught immigration law and currently teaches a seminar on civil liberties and terrorism. He is a 1988 graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was a Notes & Comments Editor of the Law Review, and is a former law clerk to Frank M. Coffin of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.