You are here: ǻ Profiles Faculty Robert Dinerstein

Back to top

Photograph of Robert Dinerstein

Robert Dinerstein Professor Emeritus Washington College of Law

Bio

Robert Dinerstein is professor of law emeritus at ǻ Washington College of Law (ǻWCL), where he taught from 1983-2023. He founded and directed the law school’s Disability Rights Law Clinic from 2005-2023. He also has served as the law school’s acting dean (2020-21), associate dean for academic affairs (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018), and director of the Criminal Justice Clinic (1988-1996). He specializes in the fields of clinical legal education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity, and alternatives to guardianship, including supported decision making), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.

Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.

He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.

Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:


  • “Implementing Legal Capacity Under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: The Difficult Road from Guardianship to Supported Decision-Making” (Human Rights Brief, 2012);

  • “Emerging International Practices in Guardianship Law for People with Disabilities,” 22 ILSA J. Int’l & Comp. L. 435 (Winter 2016)(with Martinis & Grewal);

  • “T Olmstead Imperative: The Right to Live in the Community and Beyond,” 4 (1) Inclusion 16 (Winter 2016);

  • “Supportive Decision Making as an Alternative to Guardianship,” National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP) 14 (2) Frontline Initiative (2017)—Published by University of Minnesota, Research and Training Center on Community Living (RTC), Institute in Community Integration, ;

  • “Tales from a Supportive Guardianship,” 53(2) Court Review: The Journal of the American Judges Association 74 (2017);

  • “Supported Decision-Making for People with Disabilities: International Origins and Influences,” 42 (3) TASH Connections 15-18 (Fall 2017);

  • “Using the ADA’s ‘Integration Mandate’ to Disrupt Mass Incarceration” (with Shira Wakschlag),96(4) Denver Law Review 915 (2019);

  • “Guardianships vs. Special Needs Trusts and Other Protective Arrangements: Ensuring Judicial Accountability and Beneficiary Autonomy”(with A. Frank Johns & Patricia Kefalas Dudek), 72 Syracuse L. Rev. 423-468 (2022);

  • Stephanie Meredith, Kara Ayers, Marsha Michie, Mark W. Leach, & Robert D. Dinerstein, “Impact of the Dobbs Decision on Prenatal Disability Education and Support,” 7 HELEN: The Journal of Human Exceptionality, journal of American Academy of Developmental Medicine & Dentistry (AADMD) 26 (December 2022), available at ;

  • Robert Dinerstein, Deborah Enix-Ross, Nina Kohn & Ellie Lanier,” Modern Laws and Out-of–Court Solutions Can Advance Guardianship,” Bloomberg Law News, March 9. 2023 [part of multi-part investigation of adult guardianship], available at ;

  • “Representing Clients with Diminished Capacity: Challenges and Opportunities,” 40 (4) GPSolo Magazine, American Bar Association, Solo, Small Firm, and General Practice Division, July/August 2023;

  • Covid-19 and the Rights of People with Disabilities, Chapter 8, pp. 117-29, in Claire L. Parins, ed., The Legal and Social Ramifications of Pandemics on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, ABA Civil Rights and Social Justice Section (ABA, 2023)

In the area of legal education and lawyering, he has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling, especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990) and in Chapter 3 of Lawyers and Clients, above. His recent articles include


  • “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),”44Syllabus 2(Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar;

  • Co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018);

  • ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue);

  • Robert D. Dinerstein, Elliott S. Milstein, and Ann C. Shalleck, Fifty Years of Clinical Legal Education at ǻ Washington College of Law: The Evolution of a Movement in Theory, Practice, and People, 31 ǻ J. Gender, Soc Pol’y & L., 257-309 (2023).

From 1994-2001, Dinerstein served on the President's Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities. He has been an expert witness in several disability law cases and was appointed a special hearing officer in Virginia Dep’t of Education v. Riley (4th Cir. 1996), a case involving the federal government’s proposed withholding of IDEA funds for Virginia’s alleged non-compliance with the statute. He chairs the ABA Commission on Disability Rights (2022-present) and was a member of the Commission from 2018-21. He is co-chair of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s Disability Rights Committee. He is involved in several working groups within the section, including one on reform of guardianship laws and one on proposed revisions to Model Rule 1.14, Representing Clients with Diminished Capacity.

Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization and the Open Society Foundations regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa and was the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program sponsored by the Open Society Foundations. For many years he has taught a class on the right to legal capacity and supported decision making in the University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights Advanced Human Rights Course on Disability Rights in an African context.

Domestically, Dinerstein has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. Prior to joining ǻWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. He has written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.

Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.

Dinerstein chairs the board of directors of the Equal Rights Center, and in the past has served on the boards of the New Hope Community, Inc. (chair, 2022-23), Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Disability Rights International (founding board member), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center. He also was a founding member of the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind, on which he served until 2019, and continues to present frequently at its symposia.

Among his many awards and honors, he was recognized as “Advocate, Leader, Change Agent” for years of service as board chair for Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, August 27, 2023 [“Quality Trust is proud and honored to have had you govern and lead this organization as Board President in 2002. You have been an Ambassador of our mission and vision and we acknowledge the difference you have made for Quality Trust and people with developmental disabilities”]. He has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).

Dinerstein is regularly called upon by media outlets to comment on disability rights and legal education issues, among other areas.

He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School.

For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call ǻ Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

ǻ Experts

Area of Expertise

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); mental disability; special education; supported decision making; issues of capacity of people with disabilities; human rights of people with disabilities; legal education; lawyering process and skills

Additional Information

Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of WCL's Disability Rights Law Clinic. He specializes in the Americans with Disabilities Act and other disability statutes, the rights of people with intellectual disabilities and mental health disabilities or psychosocial disorders, civil rights, lawyer-client issues, clinical legal education, and general aspects of legal education. He was the law school's associate dean for academic affairs from 1997 to 2004 and associate dean for experiential education from 2013-2018. He directed WCL's clinical program from 1988 to 1996 and from 2008 to 2018. Dinerstein served on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation [now named the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities] from 1994 to 2001 and is currently a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights. Prior to joining ǻ in 1983, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people institutionalized in mental hospitals, institutions for people with intellectual disabilities, and juvenile training schools. Dinerstein currently is president of the board of directors of the Equal Rights Center and a member of the boards of directors of New Hope Community and New Hope Foundation. Previously, he has served on the boards of the District of Columbia Bar, the Society of American Law Teachers, Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities Inc. (founding member and chair, 2001-2017), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding member and treasurer), Advocates for Justice Education (treasurer), Disability Rights International (chair), Maryland Disability Law Center, and Legal Counsel for the Elderly. He is actively involved with national legal education issues within the American Bar Association (where he was an elected member of the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar 2006–2011) and the Association of American Law Schools (where he has served as chair of the Section on Clinical Legal Education, and was a co-founder of the Clinical Law Review, among other positions). Dinerstein has written numerous articles and presented extensively on disability law (domestic and international) and clinical legal education subjects. He is coauthor and coeditor of A Guide to Consent (American Association on Mental Retardation, 1999), which addresses issues of capacity and consent in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. He is coauthor of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson Reuters, 2009). He is the winner of the William Pincus Award (AALS Section on Clinical Legal Educations, 2010), the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (with Ann Shalleck) (WCL, 2011–12), and the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA Commission on Disability Rights, 2013), and was elected a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016). He has received a number of awards from the university and law school for his teaching, scholarship, and service, including the University Award for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013).

For the Media

To request an interview for a news story, call ǻ Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Related Links