Background

Lisa Martin is a professor at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. She specializes in legal issues relating to gender-based violence, the rights of adolescents, and children’s access to civil justice.

Martin is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an appointed member of the South Carolina Access to Justice Commission, co-chair of the AALS Bellow Scholar Committee and a former Bellow Scholar, member of the NMRS Center on Professionalism’s Advisory Board, and an affiliate faculty member of the USC Women’s and Gender Studies Department.
Martin has held a number of leadership roles in the clinical legal education community including serving as co-president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), treasurer of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Clinical Legal Education, and a member of the planning committee for the AALS Annual Clinical Legal Education Conference. 
Martin received her B.A., magna cum laude, from the College of William and Mary, and her J.D., cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Selected Scholarship

Articles

• Parental Authority over Children’s Litigation, 67 B.C. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2026).
• The Importance of Civil Pathways to Protection Orders, 113 Geo. L.J. 121 (2024).Featured in Allan Erbsen, Expanding Access to Civil Remedies for Domestic Violence, JOTWELL (June 3, 2025).
• Securing Access to Justice for Children, 57 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 615 (2022)
• Modernizing Capacity Doctrine, 73 Fla. L. Rev. 821 (2021).
• Litigation as Parenting, 95 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 442 (2020).
• No Right to Counsel, No Access Without: The Poor Child’s Unconstitutional Catch-22, 71 Fla. L. Rev. 831 (2019).
  Quoted in JD v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 69 F.4th 280 (5th Cir. 2023)(majority opinion & Oldham J., dissenting and concurring in judgment); cited in Grizzell v. San Elijo Elementary Sch., No., 21-55956, 2024 WL 3682780 (9th Cir. Aug. 7, 2024).

Reports

• Orders of Protection in South Carolina
• Restraining Orders in South Carolina

Education

• J.D., Georgetown University Law Center
• B.A., College of William and Mary

Teaching

• Immigration Law (LAWS 627)
• Evidence (LAWS 671)
• Domestic Violence Clinic (LAWS 752)
• Gender-Based Violence Seminar (LAWS 781)