Above (L to R): Daniel Kanstroom, Harley Etienne, Ted Landsmark, Jerome Lyle Rappaport, Kathleen MacNeil, Angie Liou, Sean Fontes, andElisabeth J. Medvedow (Photo by Reba Saldanha)
About the Center
The Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy at Boston College Law School galvanizes the region’s policy makers and thought leaders to engage in dynamic discussions on critical public policy issues through the Rappaport Distinguished Public Policy Series. The discussions include forums, conferences, and symposia to address societal issues with leaders from government, business, academia, and the nonprofit world.
To inspire future public policy leaders, the Rappaport Center also runs the Rappaport Fellows Program which provides funded summer internships for 12 exceptional law students from Boston College Law School, Boston University School of Law, Harvard University Law School, Northeastern University School of Law, Suffolk University Law School, New England Law | Boston, the University of Massachusetts School of Law, and Western New England University School of Law. These law students are offered opportunities to experience the complexities and rewards of public policy work and public service at the highest levels of state and local government. The program includes coveted summer internships, during which students work with top policy makers; mentorship by the Center’s staff, civic leaders, and respected attorneys; and educational programming.
The Center also established the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professors in Law and Public Policy to bring visiting professors, a diverse group of public sector luminaries, to spend a semester at Boston College Law School. The Visiting Professors teach a semester-long seminar on public policy, deliver a community address, and meet with students, faculty, and members of the BC and Rappaport Center communities.
In the 2019 fall term, the Center launched a new initiative introducing Senior Fellows in Residence. Senior Fellows will spend one week at Boston College Law School teaching a policy-oriented seminar, giving a public lecture, and engaging with the BC and Rappaport communities. The Senior Fellows will be practitioners and academics who are deeply involved in research or practice on timely and significant issues of law and public policy.
The Rappaport Center is led by Faculty Director Daniel Kanstroom and Executive Director Elisabeth J. Medvedow. An Advisory Board, chaired by Michael Caljouw, Vice President, Government and Regulatory AffairsBlue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, helps guide its work. The Center works in collaboration with the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard University.
The Rappaport Center was established at Boston College Law School in 2015 with a gift from the Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation.
Above (L to R): Jerome Lyle Rappaport, Phyllis Rappaport, and Vincent Rougeau
The Rappaport Fellows and the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy were featured in the Boston Globe, published on October 8, 2020. For the last 20 years, the Rappaport Fellows Program has provided more than 230 gifted law students opportunities to experience government service, at the state and local level, with a focus on public policy and law.
Contact:
daniel.kanstroom@bc.edu
617-552-0880
Faculty Director
Daniel Kanstroom is Professor of Law, Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar, Faculty Director of the Rappaport Center for Law & Public Policy, Director of the International Human Rights Program, and an Associate Director of the Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice. He teaches Immigration and Refugee Law, International Human Rights Law, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and the International Human Rights Semester in Practice. Professor Kanstroom was the founder of the Boston College Immigration and Asylum clinic in which students represent indigent noncitizens and asylum-seekers. Together with his students, he has won many high-profile immigration and asylum cases and has provided counsel for hundreds of clients over more than a decade. He and his students have also written amicus briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court, organized innumerable public presentations in schools, churches, community centers, courts and prisons, and have advised many community groups. He was a co-founder of the Immigration Spring Break Trips, where students work on immigration law cases during their Spring Break. Professor Kanstroom’s newest initiative, the Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, seeks to conceptualize and develop a new field of law while representing US deportees abroad and undertaking empirical study of the effects of deportation on families and communities.
Contact:
medvedow@bc.edu
617-552-6849
Executive Director
Elisabeth J. Medvedow serves as the Inaugural Executive Director of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy having joined Boston College Law School in 2015.
Medvedow continues in her distinguished career in nonprofit management. For many years before coming to BC Law School, she was Executive Director of Discovering Justice, a civic education nonprofit housed in the Moakley U.S. Courthouse that teaches elementary and middle school students about democracy, justice, social studies, and law. Prior to Discovering Justice, Medvedow championed women lawyers as Executive Director of the Women’s Bar Association and Women’s Bar Foundation, the charitable affiliate which brought pro bono legal services to victims of domestic violence, elderly women and men, homeless women, and women prisoners.
For a decade before entering the nonprofit arena, Medvedow was an appellate prosecutor at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. She has briefed and argued numerous cases before the First Circuit Court of Appeals, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and Massachusetts Appeals Court.
Among her many professional and civic activities, Medvedow has been a member of the ABA Advisory Commission to the Standing Committee on Public Education; Governor’s Special Commission on Civic Engagement and Learning; Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence; Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Substance Abuse; and the Massachusetts Law Review Board of Editors. She was also awarded a Wasserstein In-Residence Fellowship at Harvard Law School. She was honored with a 2017 Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly “Top Women of Law Circle of Excellence” award, was inducted into the YWCA’s Academy of Women Achievers, is a member of the Women’s Bar Foundation Emeritus Board, and currently serves as President of Congregation Dorshei Tzedek.
Medvedow received her B.A. degree, cum laude, and a M.S. in Education, from the University of Pennsylvania, and her J.D. degree from Northeastern University School of Law. Following law school, she taught for three years at Suffolk University Law School, and then served as a law clerk in the Massachusetts Appeals Court for the Honorable Raya Dreben and in the U.S. District Court for the Honorable John McNaught.
Contact:
chingoab@bc.edu
617-552-1236
Administrative Assistant
Abigail (Abi) Chingo became the administrative assistant for the Rappaport Center in the summer of 2022 after graduating from Boston College (class of 2022) with a bachelor's degree in Sociology. Chingo is currently a graduate student at the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College, where she is pursuing a Master’s degree in Administration and Leadership with a concentration in Human Resources. In her free time, she likes playing the piano and spending time with her two cats. You can reach her through the provided email and phone number on the left.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board for the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy assists Center leadership in making strategic decisions on Center policies and programming. The board is made up of some of the most experienced law and public policy leaders in New England. Click on each name to learn more about the Board member.
Michael Caljouw
Commissioner of Insurance
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Mary Beckman
Senior Advisor
Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Anthony J. Benedetti
Chief Counsel
Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS)
James Bor-Zale
Senior Associate
WilmerHale
Kathryn Carlson
Executive Director
Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
Rebekah Levine Coley
Professor, Boston College
Lynch School of Education
Joseph Curtatone
President
New England Clean Energy Council
Sean Fontes
Employment and Litigation Counsel
Partridge Snow & Hahn
Susan Finegan
Member and Chair, Pro Bono Committee
Mintz
Lourdes German
Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nikki Hadas
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Akebia Therapeutics
Scott Harshbarger
Senior Counsel, Casner & Edwards
Michael Jellinek, M.D.
Pediatrician and
Adult & Child Psychiatrist;
Professor of Psychiatry and of Pediatrics
Harvard Medical School
Daniel Kanstroom
Professor and Rappaport Center Faculty Director
Boston College Law School
Julia Kobick
U.S. District Court Judge
District of Massachusetts
Ân H. Lê
Director of Policy and Research
City of Boston
Patricia McCoy
Professor
Boston College Law School
M. Patrick Moore, Jr.
First Assistant Attorney General
Massachusetts Attorney General's Office
Phyllis Rappaport
Chairperson
Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation
Tanisha M. Sullivan
Associate General Counsel, Sanofi Genzyme
President, NAACP Boston
Bill Walczak
Chair
Bunker Hill Community College, Codman Academy, and Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education;
Columnist, Dorchester Reporter
Michelle Wu
Mayor
City of Boston
Contact Us
The Rappaport Center is located on the Boston College Law School campus:
Barat House
885 Centre St.
Newton, MA 02459
Fax: 617-552-1243
General Inquiries
rappaport@bc.edu
Daniel Kanstroom, Faculty Director
daniel.kanstroom@bc.edu
617-552-0880
Elisabeth J. Medvedow, Executive Director
medvedow@bc.edu
617-552-6849
Abi Chingo, Administrative Assistant
chingoab@bc.edu
617-552-1236
