Alice Abrokwa, a U.S. Department of Education attorney with expertise in disability law, health law and anti-discrimination law, will join the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law this summer.
Ms. Abrokwa, who will be teaching Civil Procedure and Pain and the Law next academic year, brings extensive experience as a public interest lawyer to the Law School. She currently serves as a presidentially appointed senior counsel to the Department of Education, working on matters that fall under the purview of the Civil Rights Division. Ms. Abrokwa has served as a senior attorney at the National Youth Law Center, a litigation attorney for the Disability Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and a Skadden Fellow at the Judge David L. Bazelon Mental Health Law Center.
“I am thrilled to welcome Alice to the Law School,” said Dean Lisa Goluboff. “She has exceptional depth and diversity of experience across many relevant fields, including education, disability, health and mental health law. Her unique skills and expertise make her both an innovative scholar and a fantastic and important resource for our students.”
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Ms. Abrokwa currently serves as an annual fellow at the Harvard Disability Project. In addition to her J.D., she holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University.
After graduating from Harvard University, he clerked for Judge James R. Spencer of the Eastern District of Virginia and Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Growing up in Auburn, Alabama, Abrokwa said she was “pretty focused on fairness for children and young people” and went to law school with dreams of working as an attorney representing children and young people in the juvenile criminal justice system. An internship with a nonprofit now called the Louisiana Children’s Rights Center changed her course.
“I had worked in a juvenile public defender’s office the summer after my second year of law school, where we took a holistic approach to advocacy,” she says, “and that experience led me to really consider mental health as a key intervention point in the lives of similarly vulnerable and marginalized children and young people.”
Abrokwa’s academic approach and knowledge bridge the gap between theory and practice, informed by the experiences he gains from working daily with clients.
At the Bazelon Center, Abrokwa worked with a young student who had been repeatedly suspended for disability-related behavior. She connected staff with a behavior specialist and trained teachers in how to respond positively to the student’s needs. The school continued to use the specialist multiple times.
“No one started out with bad intentions,” she recalled. Abrokwa said they lacked the resources, expertise and knowledge they needed to help the student. But once school staff worked hard to learn how certain behaviors signaled a need for specific support, “it ended up benefiting not only that student but other students as well.”
She added: “I’m really encouraged by the willingness of schools to come together and invest. [their staff’s] Skill set.”
Abrokwa has also worked on impact litigation to ensure students have access to mental health services outside of school, in home and community settings.
“I will work to improve the mental health system more broadly for Medicaid-eligible children. [these children] There was no access to the facility. [and] What did you get? [they] Home, school, and [the] It builds a more inclusive community.”
Abrokwa said the switch to academia would allow him to delve deeper into questions that arose in his work as a lawyer.
“In any particular case, you have to be focused on what your client wants and what the facts of the case are. So one of the things I’m really looking forward to in academia is the ability to step back and think through theoretical questions that might not arise as much in a case,” she said. “Testing the boundaries of the law and thinking through theoretical questions is another way to shape legal outcomes broadly and impactfully, whether or not you can do it in an individual case.”
Abrokwa’s article, “Too Stubborn to Care: How Discrimination Affects Patient Nonadherence,” published in the Vanderbilt Law Review, explores what’s happening at the intersection of many of the issues she has worked on. In her article, Abrokwa focuses on the context of health care and the consequences that arise when doctors label patients as “noncompliant” with medical instructions.
“Not everyone gets the same benefits when they’re perceived as non-compliant,” she said, noting the issue ranges from schools to interactions with police to the health care system. “They may face additional scrutiny that intertwines race, disability and gender.”
In the medical field, Abrokwa explained:[t]The power that health care providers have to mark patients as ‘non-compliant’ in their medical records is a special power given to them by the legal system, and I was amazed by it and really wanted to explore that in this piece.”
For example, a patient who is deemed non-compliant by their doctor may not receive full compensation in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Moreover, if a patient is classified in this way, it “means they cannot receive disability benefits and could be used as evidence of character.”
As a disability rights lawyer, Abrokwa’s work spans everything from employment law to education to policing, with a central focus on the “civil rights” of people with disabilities in all systems and settings.
Abrokwa said she looks forward to interacting with colleagues and students at the University of Virginia.
“I’m especially excited to help students who are interested in the public interest think about what a career path might be for them, such as a government lawyer or clerk,” she said.
Abrokwa said he has long been interested in contributing to the greater good of society.
“One of the most amazing uses of something as powerful as a legal education is to use it to serve the public,” she said. “I’ve been really honored to be able to do that through my litigation and policy work, and it’s been really rewarding for me.”
Professor Joy Milligan, who served on this year’s faculty appointments committee, said Abrokwa “is someone that I think students will gravitate towards. She has a great attitude and I think she’ll be a star in the classroom as well as academically.”
“She has a lot of practical experience and is a very bright and talented lawyer, but she’s also theoretically ambitious, reads widely and draws on research across multiple disciplines, including public health, medicine, other social sciences, social theory and law. So we’re really excited to have her here.”