Michael Kagan is an Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Immigration Clinic at the William S. Boyd School of Law. On July 6, he was featured in the VEGAS INC article Many lawyers for many laws.
The article, about some of the more unique areas of law, reads, "... the first 10 years of his career involved setting up legal aid programs for refugees in Cairo, Beirut and Tel Aviv. Before he arrived in Cairo, as many as 80 percent of Sudanese refugees were rejected. After Kagan established his program, that number dropped in half. He said refugees had a hard time communicating their stories in a compelling way that could lead to asylum being granted. 'The idea that a lawyer was involved in this process was almost unheard of,' Kagan said. 'In many ways, I was practicing law where law had never been practiced before.'”
Professor Kagan has written several of the most widely cited articles in the fields of refugee and asylum law. His research on credibility assessment in asylum cases has been repeatedly relied on by federal appellate courts and, according to a 2012 commentary, has "guided most subsequent research and analysis on the topic."
Boyd School of Law students who assist at the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center (RMIC), an organization focused on correcting and preventing the conviction of innocent people, were also featured in the article.
The article reads, "The RMIC team is made up largely of students from UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law, who can spend up to two years researching a case. When enough evidence is found to consider a DNA petition, civil attorneys offer pro-bono services."
