MSU Law Clinical Professor Presents on Scholarship and Pedagogy at Several Fall Conferences
Professor Godfrey MSU Law Clinical Professor Nicole Godfrey has earned a national reputation for her scholarship on the laws concerning incarceration in federal prisons and for her clinical teaching pedagogy. She shared her expertise at conferences across the country.
As a panelist at Nebraska Law Review’s 2023 Symposium “Conditions of Confinement” Panel, Professor Godfrey shared that her deep commitment to addressing human rights abuses in federal prisons began as a law student. She has spent much of her career litigating cases on behalf of incarcerated people and advocating for change through her research. Professor Godfrey will publish an article entitled “Group Prayer in Prison” as part of the Nebraska Law Review’s symposium edition. At the conclusion of the Symposium, Professor Danielle Jefferis of the University of Nebraska, announced that she, Professor Godfrey, and Professor Laura Rovner of the University of Denver, have created the Federal Confinement Accountability Project, which will serve as a central repository for research on the federal incarceration system.
Days after the Nebraska Symposium, Professor Godfrey participated in the Clinical Law Review Writer’s Workshop at New York University. There, she shared an early draft of “Operating in the Shadows: Unaccountability and Indifference in the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” an early-stage project that Professor Godfrey hopes will add to her list of publications found in numerous Law Reviews.
A sought-after speaker on numerous topics, Professor Godfrey shared her educator experience as a speaker on two panels during the Midwest Clinical Conference. During the first panel, she spoke about pedagogical strategies for bridging generational differences in views on professionalism in times of crisis. On the second panel, Professor Godfrey, formerly a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, spoke about the challenges of participating in and designing a clinical teaching fellowship program.
Students Lili Freedlander, Eric Staats, and Eli Graves
As an educator at MSU College of Law, Professor Godfrey has the dual role of Associate Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Housing Justice Clinic (HJC). Through the HJC, Professor Godfrey teaches and supervises students who are representing low-to-moderate-income Michigan residents who have rental or homeownership issues, including advocacy for formally incarcerated individuals facing housing issues. At the request of the East Side Financial Literacy group, three HJC student attorneys provided a presentation on Tenants’ Rights and Responsibilities to a well-attended audience during the Fall 2023 semester. MSU Law students Lili Freedlander, Eli Graves, and Eric Staats received high marks from the audience for sharing this important information.
“The students not only gained the experience of building a presentation for the community, but they also had the opportunity to develop their oral presentation skills,” said Professor Godfrey. “Learning to synthesize and present legal arguments to a lay audience will be valuable as students develop their client counseling and oral advocacy skills.”