Elizabeth Bartholet
Nationally renowned child welfare expert Elizabeth Bartholet (Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law) is the founding Faculty Director of Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program. She teaches family law, specializing in child welfare, adoption and reproductive technology, as well as employment discrimination. Before joining the HLS Faculty, she was engaged in civil rights and public interest work, first with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and later as founder and director of the Legal Action Center, a non-profit organization in New York City focused on criminal justice and substance abuse issues. Bartholet graduated from Radcliffe College in 1962, and from Harvard Law School in 1965. Her publications include: Nobody’s Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative (Beacon Press, 1999), and Family Bonds: Adoption, Infertility, and the New World of Child Production (Beacon Press, 1999), as well as numerous law review articles. Bartholet has won several awards for her writing and her related advocacy work in the area of adoption and child welfare. Other awards include a “Media Achievement Award” in 1994 and the Radcliffe College Alumnae Recognition Award in 1997. For more information about Professor Bartholet and to view her publications, please visit her website.
Crisanne Hazen
Crisanne Hazen is the Assistant Director of Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program. Crisanne joined CAP in the summer of 2016. She came from San Jose, California, where she worked as a supervising attorney at Legal Advocates for Children and Youth (LACY), a program of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Starting at LACY as an Equal Justice Works Fellow in 2006, Crisanne developed a “know your rights” curriculum for pregnant and parenting teens, which she taught at 6 area high schools. Over the 10 years at LACY, she represented hundreds of teen parents in family law and restraining order matters, as well as directly represented children and youth of all ages in a variety of civil proceedings including family law, guardianships, housing, benefits, special education, and school discipline. She helped to start and later manage a medical-legal partnership clinic in the Pediatric Department of Valley Medical Center in San Jose. She also managed other population-based projects, including a CSEC project, transition-age foster youth project, and a foster youth identity theft project. Crisanne is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of California-Davis School of Law.
Margo Strucker
Margo Strucker is the Child Advocacy Program’s Program Associate. Margo joined CAP in 2010. Previously she worked in early childhood and special education, residential mental health counseling, and non-profit communications and project management. Margo completed Horizons for Homeless Children’s PAL volunteer training and 14 additional hours of instruction in issues surrounding families and individuals affected by domestic violence or intimate partner violence (IPV). Margo is a 2002 graduate of Harvard College.
Kaiysa Mendy
Kaiysa Mendy is Professor Bartholet’s Executive Assistant. Kaiysa joined HLS in February 2020. She previously worked in early childhood education and speech pathology. Kaiysa is a three-time graduate of Northeastern University.
Kathleen Moore
Kathleen Moore is the Child Advocacy Program’s Research Attorney. Kathleen began consulting with CAP in September 2016 and became part of the team in the summer of 2017. She formerly practiced with Day, Berry & Howard in Boston. Kathleen is a long time resident of Cambridge where she created the curriculum for and taught a mock trial program and civics classes in the City’s schools. Kathleen continues her connection to local students through her work as an educational advisor to secondary school students including first generation college bound high schoolers.