Paula Galowitz

Clinical Professor of Law, New York University School of Law

B.A., Rutgers University

M.S.W., Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University

J.D., Brooklyn Law School

(212) 998-6441 (phone); (212) 995-4031 (fax); paula.galowitz@nyu.edu

For almost two decades, Professor Paula Galowitz has concentrated her teaching, scholarship, and bar association work on improving legal services for the indigent. Today, she is widely known both as a clinical teacher and as an expert on civil legal services for indigent clients.

A graduate of Brooklyn Law School, Galowitz clerked for Judge Jacob D. Fuchsberg of the New York State Court of Appeals before joining the Civil Division of the New York Legal Aid Society. In 1980, she came to NYU School of Law. Professor Galowitz is part of the faculty team in NYU Law’s Civil Legal Services Clinic, a field work clinic that represents indigents in a wide variety of matters involving housing, government benefits, family law, immigration, education, and AIDS-related matters. She also teaches a simulated course on civil litigation.

Galowitz has previously been chair of the Committee of the Housing Court of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and chair of the Committee on Legal Services, an organization of law professors working to improve the delivery of civil legal services.

Galowitz sees her Bar Association work as connected intimately to her work as an educator. “Given the retrenchment in the funding available for civil legal services,” she says, “we have an affirmative responsibility as members of a legal profession committed to pro bono work and systemic reform to work with the practicing bar to help those most sorely in need.”

Representative Publications

  • “Collaboration Between Lawyers and Social Workers: Re-Examining the Nature and Potential of the Relationship,” 67 Fordham Law Review 2123 (1999)
  • “The Housing Court’s Role in Maintaining Affordable Housing,” in Housing and Community Development in New York City: Facing the Future (State University of New York Press, 1999)
  • “Restrictions on Lobbying by Legal Services Attorneys: Redefining Professional Norms and Obligations,” 4 Boston University International Law Journal 1 (1994)

Research

  • Access to Justice
  • Housing
  • Immigration
  • Poverty Law
  • Public Benefits

Appointments

  • Clinical Professor of Law, 1992
  • Associate Clinical Professor of Law, 1986
  • Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, 1982
  • Clinical Instructor of Law, 1980