Robert  Dinerstein is professor of law emeritus at 헤라카지노 Washington  College of Law (헤라카지노 주소WCL), where he taught from 1983-2023.  He founded and directed the law school’s  Disability Rights Law Clinic from 2005-2023.  He also has served as the law school’s acting dean (2020-21), associate  dean for academic affairs (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential  education (2012-2018), director of the clinical program (1988-96 and  2008-2018), and director of the Criminal Justice Clinic (1988-1996). He specializes  in the fields of clinical legal education and disability law, especially mental  disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity, and  alternatives to guardianship, including supported decision making), the  Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons  with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities,  and disability and international human rights. 

  Dinerstein  has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law,  among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and  other writing on these subjects.

  He  is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late  Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is  co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann  Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and  Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.

  Among  Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author  of:

 
• “Implementing  Legal Capacity Under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons  with Disabilities: The Difficult Road from Guardianship to Supported  Decision-Making” (Human Rights Brief, 2012);

 
• “Emerging  International Practices in Guardianship Law for People with Disabilities,” 22  ILSA J. Int’l & Comp. L. 435 (Winter 2016)(with Martinis & Grewal);

 
• “The Olmstead Imperative: The Right to Live  in the Community and Beyond,” 4 (1) Inclusion 16 (Winter 2016);

 
• “Supportive Decision Making as an Alternative  to Guardianship,” National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP) 14  (2) Frontline Initiative (2017)—Published by University of Minnesota, Research  and Training Center on Community Living (RTC), Institute in Community  Integration, ;

 
• “Tales  from a Supportive Guardianship,” 53(2) Court Review: The Journal of the  American Judges Association 74 (2017);

 
• “Supported Decision-Making for People with Disabilities: International  Origins and Influences,” 42 (3) TASH Connections 15-18 (Fall 2017);

 
• “Using  the ADA’s ‘Integration Mandate’ to Disrupt Mass Incarceration” (with Shira  Wakschlag),96(4) Denver Law Review 915 (2019);

 
• “Guardianships  vs. Special Needs Trusts and Other Protective Arrangements: Ensuring Judicial  Accountability and Beneficiary Autonomy”(with  A. Frank Johns & Patricia Kefalas Dudek), 72 Syracuse L. Rev. 423-468 (2022);

 
• Stephanie Meredith, Kara Ayers, Marsha  Michie, Mark W. Leach, & Robert D. Dinerstein, “Impact of the Dobbs  Decision on Prenatal Disability Education and Support,” 7 HELEN: The Journal of  Human Exceptionality, journal of American Academy  of Developmental Medicine & Dentistry (AADMD) 26 (December 2022), available  at  ;

 
• Robert  Dinerstein, Deborah Enix-Ross, Nina Kohn & Ellie Lanier,” Modern Laws and  Out-of–Court Solutions Can Advance Guardianship,” Bloomberg Law News, March 9.  2023 [part of multi-part investigation of adult guardianship], available at ;

 
• “Representing Clients with Diminished  Capacity: Challenges and Opportunities,” 40 (4) GPSolo Magazine, American Bar  Association, Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice Division, July/August 2023;

 
• Covid-19  and the Rights of People with Disabilities, Chapter  8, pp. 117-29, in Claire L. Parins, ed., The  Legal and Social Ramifications of Pandemics on Civil Rights and Civil  Liberties, ABA Civil Rights and Social Justice Section (ABA, 2023)

In  the area of legal education and lawyering, he has  written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in  particular, client-centered counseling, especially in his article,  “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev.  501 (1990) and in Chapter 3 of Lawyers and Clients, above. His recent articles  include

 
• “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus  2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and  Admissions to the Bar;  

 
• Co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel  and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3)  Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018);

 
• ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical  Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue);

 
• Robert D. Dinerstein, Elliott S.  Milstein, and Ann C. Shalleck, Fifty  Years of Clinical Legal Education at 헤라카지노 Washington College of  Law:  The Evolution of a Movement in  Theory, Practice, and People, 31  헤라카지노 주소 J. Gender, Soc Pol’y & L.,  257-309 (2023).

From  1994-2001, Dinerstein served on the President's Committee on People with  Intellectual Disabilities. He has been an expert witness in several disability  law cases and was appointed a special hearing officer in Virginia Dep’t of Education v. Riley (4th Cir. 1996), a  case involving the federal government’s proposed withholding of IDEA funds for  Virginia’s alleged non-compliance with the statute. He chairs the ABA  Commission on Disability Rights (2022-present) and was a member of the  Commission from 2018-21.  He is co-chair  of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s Disability  Rights Committee. He is involved in several working groups within the  section, including one on reform of guardianship laws and one on proposed  revisions to Model Rule 1.14, Representing Clients with Diminished Capacity.

  Internationally,  he has consulted for the World Health Organization and the Open Society  Foundations regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to  the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal,  Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations  regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin  America and Southern Africa and was the principal investigator for the  Disability and Human Rights Fellows program sponsored by the Open Society  Foundations. For many years he has taught a class on the right to legal capacity  and supported decision making in the University of Pretoria Centre for Human  Rights Advanced Human Rights Course on Disability Rights in an African context.

  Domestically,  Dinerstein has consulted for the Ford  Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human  Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal  services, disability law and poverty law. Prior to joining 헤라카지노 주소WCL,  Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil  Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court  cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial  disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. He has  written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement  of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.

  Dinerstein  is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He  was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section  on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on  the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been  a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams.  Within the Association of American Law 헤라카지노 도메인s, he was a member of the  membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections  on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and  mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education,  sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006  clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other  planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.

  Dinerstein  chairs the board of directors of the Equal Rights Center, and in the past has  served on the boards of the New Hope Community, Inc. (chair, 2022-23), Quality  Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member &  president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding  board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and  Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors  (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Disability  Rights International (founding board member), Legal Counsel for the Elderly,  and the Maryland Disability Law Center. He also was a founding member of the  steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium  sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind, on which he served until 2019,  and continues to present frequently at its symposia.

Among  his many awards and honors, he was recognized as “Advocate, Leader, Change Agent” for years  of service as board chair for Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities,  August 27, 2023 [“Quality Trust is proud and honored to have had you govern and  lead this organization as Board President in 2002.  You have been an Ambassador of our mission  and vision and we acknowledge the difference you have made for Quality Trust  and people with developmental disabilities”]. He has received the WCL  Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American  Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received  the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck)  the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William  Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American  University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching  in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for  Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono  Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).

  Dinerstein  is regularly called upon by media outlets to comment on disability rights and  legal education issues, among other areas.

  He  has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law  헤라카지노 도메인.