Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Clinic

The new Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Clinic (RBG Clinic) brings an intentional gender justice lens back to Rutgers’ powerful legacy of public interest lawyering. Inspired by Justice Ginsburg’s visionary leadership, the Clinic builds on her innovative, strategic use of litigation, legislation, education, and other forms of advocacy to advance women’s rights and dismantle systemic sex-based discrimination. It carries forward her integrated approach by offering law students a dynamic, hands-on opportunity to engage in real-world advocacy at the intersection of direct client representation, community collaboration, and the reflective study of lawyering.

The RBG Clinic revives and expands the former Women’s Rights Litigation Clinic in Newark, which was founded by Justice Ginsburg in the early 1970s and remained active until the early 2000s. The new Clinic is made possible by a $6.5 million gift from the Stephanie and Harold Krieger Charitable Trust, one of the largest gifts in the law school’s history.

Clinic students will gain practical experience working directly with individual and group clients, developing legal and policy strategies, and partnering with communities and coalitions to drive systemic reform. The Clinic’s pedagogical design incorporates a broad range of advocacy methods while emphasizing ethical and social dimensions of advocacy, including intersectional analysis, self-care, and trauma-informed lawyering practices.

Leadership

Professor Marcy L. Karin, the Clinic’s founding director, brings a justice-driven, collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to legal education. She is deeply committed to training future gender justice advocates to lead with empathy, strategic insight, and a commitment to empowering clients, communities, and each other. Her work aims to use law to destigmatize “private” topics, combat structural harms, and advance needed changes for women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and families impacted by sexism, ableism, racism, poverty, gender-based violence, and inequitable access to economic security, education, healthcare, and other civil rights.

She joined Rutgers Law in the fall of 2025. Professor Karin was the 2023 Fulbright-Scotland Distinguished Scholar and previously taught at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, the Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center.