Brandeis Spotlight: Professor Jamie R. Abrams

Jamie R. Abrams teaches Torts, Family Law, Legislation and Women and the Law. Her research focuses on reproductive and birthing decision-making, gendered citizenship, legal protections for immigrant victims of domestic violence and legal education pedagogy.

She co-directs the Brandeis Human Rights Advocacy Program, which works actively with other nonprofits and stakeholders in the community to advance the human rights of immigrants, refugees and noncitizens.

What’s the best career advice you ever received?

“I think just being my authentic self and having the courage to follow that.

“When I went into law school, for example, I thought I was going to practice law in a particular area and ended up practicing in a vastly different area and changed courses. That can be especially hard in law school when big firms are knocking on our door and interviewing some of these students. A lot of people follow the stream, and it can be kind of hard to find the right path for you.

How has law school changed since you were a student?

“I think it’s changed most in the demands of law students.

“When I was in law school, I was fully funded by loans but I was nonetheless just a student. I didn’t have children, I wasn’t married, I didn’t work other than during the summers and I picked one or two key areas to get involved with.

“And now, the demands on our students are just extraordinary. So many more of our students are coming as a second career or later in life with young children at home or they’re pregnant during law school. We have single mothers, we have people caring for their parents and we have so many more students who are working and managing their faith communities and involved in other areas.

“It can be really hard because law school is so incredibly intensive. There are so many more students now who really have to manage the financial demands of law school and family caregiving. Fifteen or 20 years ago, when loans were more affordable and law school was more affordable, people could really just immerse themselves in the law school experience.”

What was your first job?

“I worked at not one but six Ponderosa Steakhouse restaurants and flipped chicken wings on buffets day and night. I followed my two sisters who had all worked there as well.

“When I got into law school, it was actually incredibly intimidating because our dean gave this very impressive list of credentials of who was in the entering class and how impressive that there’s NASA astronauts and former senators and senatorial aides and former reporters and former collegiate athletes. And I sort of laughed and emailed my parents later, saying, ‘Somehow, my extensive experience at Ponderosa Steakhouses did not make the roster.’ It was a really intimidating way to come into law school to feel like I lacked a lot of the sort of savvy and life experiences that many of my classmates had.

“I tell my students now, I actually think the best torts lawyers are waitresses and people in the service industry. At the end of the day in tort law, you’re trying to convince a jury of your peers to empathize and understand the experience that the plaintiff or the defendant went through to side with you. In that experience of being in the service industry, you learn to understand people and how to work with different kinds of people.”

What’s your favorite spot on campus?

“I love our classroom that’s dedicated to the history of women lawyers in Kentucky. Whenever I get to teach in that classroom, I find it more empowering. I really like that we took the time to tell that story of women coming into the practice of law.

“We actually have a student who is a third-generation woman law student here, so she showed me her grandmother on the wall in there. I find that space on campus to be a very empowering place.”

How do you stay motivated?

“The students are I think the most incredible asset in this building — their thirst for knowledge, their desire to master the material, their creativity, their curiosity.

“Each year, it’s sort of a rejuvenation because each year, the students want to achieve great things. They want to really master the material, and it’s motivating. It keeps the material from getting repetitive for me because it’s a new quest each year for the students.

“I feel so lucky to be able to teach first-year students especially, to be a part of their journey from the first day they enter the building.”

Why Brandeis?

“I feel like I’ve been able to find a school that really lives values of teaching with a community-engaged focus, writing with a community-engaged focus.

It doesn’t position itself out of the city center doing work in the abstract. In a city with one law school — I had previously been in New York and D.C. — if someone’s going to speak about parental rights or reproductive rights, it’s going to be me.

“And I really love the small-school environment. I had previously taught at schools with 400, 500 students in the entering class. And no matter how dedicated those faculty members are, it’s just very difficult to learn that many names. And so I sat there at graduation as hundreds and hundreds of students crossed the stage. In comparison here, most of the faculty on that stage know every name of every student crossing that stage and know their backgrounds and where they’re from.

“I really feel like I’m part of a community that cares about the community in a larger sense and is really committed to good teaching.”