Professor Marisa S. Cianciarulo has taught at Chapman University School of Law since 2006. She currently teaches Civil Procedure, the Family Violence Clinic, Gender & the Law, and Refugee Law. She earned a bachelor’s degree at the Catholic University of America, a JD at American University Washington College of Law and a Masters in International Relations at American University School of International Service. After graduating from American and passing two bar exams, Marisa worked for a local nonprofit agency representing indigent immigrants in immigration court. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, she began working for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration as a policy advocate for the rights of vulnerable immigrants. She then transitioned into teaching, first as a clinical teaching fellow at Villanova Law School and then as a professor at Chapman. In total, Marisa has been teaching for nearly ten years. In the spring of 2012, she became a tenured professor.

Marisa’s scholarship and service activities focus on issues of gender, vulnerable immigrant populations, and clinical legal education. She created and continues to direct the Bette & Wylie Aitken Family Violence Clinic, which offers free representation in immigration and protection order cases. Her work provides assistance to some of the most vulnerable people in Southern California, mostly undocumented immigrant women who are in abusive relationships. Many clients have grown up in the United States, have U.S. citizen children, and work hard and contribute to their communities and the economy but the threat of deportation is very real for them, and makes them fearful of reporting abuse to law enforcement authorities or seeking restraining orders. The Family Violence Clinic gives Chapman law students the chance to represent these clients in their applications for immigration benefits and restraining orders. “Seeing our law students grow as attorneys and individuals, and being a part of the life-changing services the students provide to the clients, is an amazing experience,” said Marisa.

Her favorite aspect of Chapman Law is teaching Civil Procedure to 1Ls.”It gives me the opportunity to get to know our wonderful students during the three years that they are with us,” she said. “I enjoy the energy of the 1Ls and the excitement of teaching students for whom the study of law is new and full of promise,” she noted. Marisa is also passionate about the Global Project for LGBTQ Rights and Feminism, which she co-directed with her mentor and friend, the late Professor Katherine Darmer. Marisa has also served on the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education for several years, last year as secretary and this year as co-chair elect. Additionally, she has served on the Section’s Membership, Training and Outreach Committee for a number of years. Marisa has been published in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the Harvard Journal on Legislation, the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, the Harvard Latino Law Review, and the American University Law Review.

In her free time, Marisa enjoys returning back east to spend time with her family in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. Her husband, Clint, a native southern Californian who composes music for film and television, enjoys the trips back east to experience the “unique cultural experience of an Italian-American family.” Marisa and Clint were blessed with their first child, Ryan Robert Cianciarusich (a combination of their last names), on February 22, 2013.