Background

Lisa Martin is a professor at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. She specializes in legal issues relating to gender-based violence, the rights of adolescents, and access to justice. Her scholarship draws from her experiences advocating for adults and adolescents who have been subjected to dating and domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking, and working with families living in poverty.

Martin is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a former Bellow Scholar, co-chair of the AALS Bellow Scholar Committee, member of the NMRS Center on Professionalism’s Advisory Board, and an affiliate faculty member of the USC Women’s and Gender Studies Department.  She formerly served on the Board of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center.

Martin has held a number of leadership roles in the clinical legal education community including serving as co-president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), treasurer of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education, and a planning committee member for the AALS Annual Clinical Legal Education Conference. 

Prior to joining the University of South Carolina, Martin was a faculty member at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law. Before joining the academy full time, she taught International Rights of Women as a lecturer at the George Washington University Law School, directed the Teen Dating Violence Program at Women Empowered Against Violence (WEAVE) in Washington, D.C., and practiced at Arent Fox LLP. Martin received her B.A., magna cum laude, from the College of William and Mary, and her J.D., cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Teaching

• Domestic Violence Clinic
• Evidence
• Gender-Based Violence Seminar
• Interviewing, Counseling, and Negotiation

Scholarship

• The Importance of Civil Pathways to Protection Orders, 113 Geo. L.J. 121 (2024)
• Securing Access to Justice for Children, 57 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 615 (2022)
• Modernizing Capacity Doctrine, 73 Fla. L. Rev. 821 (2021).
• Litigation as Parenting, 95 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 442 (2020).
• No Right to Counsel, No Access Without: The Poor Child’s Unconstitutional Catch-22, 71 Fla. L. Rev. 831 (2019).
• Restraining Forced Marriage, 18 Nev. L.J. 919 (2018). [SSRN]
• Bridging the Justice Gap in Family Law: Repurposing Federal IV-D Funding to Expand Community Based Legal and Social Services for Parents, 67 Hastings L.J. 1265 (2016) (with Stacy Brustin).
• Paved with Good Intentions: Federal Proposals to Integrate Child Support and Parenting Time, 48 Ind. L. Rev. 803 (2015) (with Stacy Brustin).
• Reconsidering Dual Consent, 82 UMKC L. Rev. 705 (2014).
• What’s Love Got to Do with It: Securing Access to Justice for Teens, 61 Cath. U. L. Rev. 457 (2012) (reprinted, in part, in Nancy K.D. Lemon, Domestic Violence Law at 293) (West, 4th ed. 2013).
• Teaching Social Justice Lawyering: Systematically Including Community Legal Education in Law School Clinics, 18 Clinical L. Rev. 401 (2012) (with Margaret Martin Barry, A. Rachel Camp, Margaret E. Johnson, and Catherine F. Klein).