Jennifer Koh
Biography
Professor Jennifer Koh joined the Pepperdine Caruso Law faculty in 2021 and brings an extensive background in teaching, scholarship and service to the law school. Her research focuses on the convergence of the immigration enforcement and criminal legal systems; the legal frameworks governing deportation, particularly streamlined procedures taking place outside the immigration courts; and the federal courts' treatment of immigration claims. Her scholarship has appeared in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, Washington University Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Stanford Law Review Online, Duke Law Journal Online, North Carolina Law Review, Florida Law Review, and Wisconsin Law Review. Various federal courts—including the United States Supreme Court—have cited Professor Koh's scholarship. She has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Law360, Orange County Register and various other media outlets and podcasts.
Professor Koh teaches Criminal Law and Evidence at Pepperdine. She has also taught doctrinal courses in Immigration Law, Administrative Law and the Legal Profession, and directed clinical programs and supervised students in a wide range of immigration matters. Most recently, she held visiting faculty positions at UC Irvine School of Law and the University of Washington School of Law. She began her teaching career as a teaching fellow and lecturer at Stanford Law School, and served on the full-time faculty at Western State College of Law.
Professor Koh joins the law school as the Co-Director of the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion and Ethics. She has written about the impact of Christians conceptions of love on immigration law discourse in the U.S., and has spoken on immigration and social justice to numerous faith-based audiences across the country. For the past decade, she has been active at NewSong Church in Santa Ana, CA.
Much of Professor Koh's career has been devoted to serving immigrant communities and advancing social justice amongst underserved populations. She helped found the nonprofit organization the Orange County Justice Fund in 2017, and continues to serve on its Board of Directors. She also sits on the Board of Directors for the Public Law Center. She is a recipient of the Orange County Hispanic Bar Association's Attorney of the Year Award and the Ethnic Studies Award from Chapman University's Attallah College of Educational Studies.
Professor Koh received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her B.A. from Yale University. Earlier in her career, she clerked for the Honorable Eugene H. Nickerson of the Eastern District of New York, directed a community lawyering project aimed at serving Asian immigrant survivors of domestic abuse at Sanctuary for Families' Center for Battered Women's Legal Services in New York City, and a litigation associate in the New York and Palo Alto offices of the law firm WilmerHale.
Education
- Columbia Law School (JD '01)
- B.A., Yale University (1998)
Courses
- Criminal Law
- Evidence
- Immigration Law