Professor Michael Pinard is the Director of the Clinical Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, one of the top-rated clinical programs in the country. With his colleague Sherrilyn Ifill, Professor Pinard co-founded the Reentry Clinic. This Clinic focuses on identifying and easing the various obstacles that individuals with criminal records – and, by extension, their families and communities – confront during the reentry process and beyond. The Clinic combines individual client representation, legislative advocacy, policy reform, community education and research. The efforts of his students have been critical to policy changes and the passage of important legislative bills in Maryland aimed at increasing employment opportunities, housing options and citizenship rights for individuals with criminal records. Professor Pinard is deeply engaged in improving legal education and developing new models for ways law schools can fill the justice gap. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Clinical Law Review and serves on the Clinical Skills Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. He is the past president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA). Professor Pinard serves on the board of directors of the Jobs Opportunities Task Force (Baltimore) and the advisory committee of the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Professor Pinard received his juris doctor from the New York University School of Law in 1994.