Penny M. Venetis

Penny M. Venetis, the director of the International Human Rights Clinic and codirector of the Constitutional Rights Clinic at Rutgers Law School, specializes in civil rights and international human rights impact litigation. She has represented political asylum seekers and immigrants detained after 9/11.

Professor Venetis has been teaching at Rutgers Law School since 1993, where she is a Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law and Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise Scholar. She has litigated cutting-edge civil rights and human rights cases for over two decades. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of human rights law and constitutional law, and enforcing human rights in the United States. 

Over the past two decades, Professor Venetis has educated hundreds of students. Some of those students have become leading human rights attorneys. Others are partners in prominent law firms who spend a considerable amount of time each year working on pro bono matters.

While on sabbatical from Rutgers, Professor Venetis served as the executive vice president and legal director of Legal Momentum, the Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund, the oldest women's rights legal advocacy organization in the United States. She led Legal Momentum's advocacy efforts to protect the rights of women and girls in areas such as: human trafficking, violence against women, campus sexual assault, employment equity, economic security, sports, and equal access to justice.

Immediately after law school, Professor Venetis clerked for Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. She also practiced law with the firm O'Melveny & Myers. She worked for the UN Special Rapporteur Investigating War Crimes in the former Yugoslavia, investigating systematic rape and genocide. 

Professor Venetis has litigated in courts throughout the world. She has been quoted extensively by the media and has testified before legislative bodies on issues related to gender equality, civil rights, and human rights.