Margaret Martin Barry was born on St. Thomas and raised on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. She graduated magna cum laude from Luther College, and received her J.D. degree in 1980 from the University of Minnesota.  Throughout her law school career, Professor Barry worked for the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, an alternative to the State Public Defender Office. In 1980, she went to work for Virgin Islands Delegate to Congress, becoming his chief legislative counsel shortly thereafter, and in 1985 also becoming the counsel to the Congressional Territorial Caucus. She left the Hill to join CUA’s Columbus Community Legal Services (CCLS) in 1987.  Professor Barry has taught in the CCLS clinical program since 1987 and in CCLS’s Families and the Law Clinic since its inception in 1993. Professor Barry has also taught Family Law at CUA and the Litigation Process in CUA’s American Law Institute in Krakow, Poland.  In summer 2005, she taught as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at NALSAR Law University in Hyderabad, India, and will lecture as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Montenegro in spring 2007.

     Professor Barry has published in the areas of clinical teaching and family law, and has served on a number of professional panels discussing clinical teaching and legal representation. Professor Barry served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education (the largest AALS section), as president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), on the CLEA board and co-chaired CLEA’s Standards Committee.  Both the AALS Clinical Section and CLEA are the leading professional organizations for clinical legal educators in the United States. She currently serves on the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Standards Review and Nominations Committees.  Professor Barry is also currently a member of the Board of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT).  In addition to her academic activities, Professor Barry co-chairs the DC Bar’s Family Law Representation Committee and has been active in developing pro bono and pro se services for DC residents who have limited access to legal representation.

Book Chapter: Co-Author of Teen Dating Violence, Creative Child Advocacy:  Global Perspectives , Sage Publications India 2004

Access to Justice: On Dialogues with the Judiciary, 29 Fordham Urb. L. J. 1089 (2002)

Clinical Legal Education for This Millennium: The Third Wave, 7 Clin. L. Rev. 1 (2000), co-authored with Jon C. Dubin and Peter A. Joy.

Accessing Justice: Are Pro Se Clinics a Reasonable Response to the Lack of Pro Bono Legal Services and Should Law School Clinics Conduct Them? 67 Fordham L. Rev. 1897 (1999).

Reflective Lawyering (Chapter 5) Learning from Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs, and Teacher’s Manual, West 1998 (and currently being revised for the second publication).

The District of Columbia’s Joint Custody Presumption: Misplaced Blame and Simplistic Solutions, 46 Cath. U. L. Rev. 801 (1997)

The Downside of Benign Intent, 5 Am. U. J. Gender & L. 1 (1997)

Clinical Supervision: Walking That Fine Line, 2 Clin. L. Rev. 137 (1995)

Protective Order Enforcement: Another Pirouette, 6 Hastings Women's L.J. 339 (1995)

A Question of Mission: Catholic Law School's Domestic Violence Clinic 38 How. L.J. 135 (1994)

EDITOR, D.C. BAR PRO BONO CHILD CUSTODY TRAINING MANUAL, MARCH 2006

Status Matters:  A Time to Act, Section on Clinical Legal Education Newsletter (November 2005)

Pro Se Pleadings for Unrepresented Litigants in DC Family Court (March 2005) (Collaboration, Members of the Pleadings Subcommittee of the Family Law Representation Committee)

Pro Se Custody Clinic Teaching Materials and Parenting Plan (Lead in collaboration with members of the Custody Clinic Subcommittee of the Family Law Representation Committee)(April 2004)

Chapter 3: The Statutory Standard in Child Custody Cases and How to Meet It, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR PRACTICE MANUAL (1997)

“A Leap Backward: D.C.’s Child Custody Act,” The Washington Lawyer (Nov/Dec 1996)

A Teacher’s Trouble:  Risk, Responsibility and Rebellion, 2 Clin. L. Rev. 315 (1995)(Conference Transcript)

Chapter 12: Domestic Violence, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR CHILD CUSTODY TRAINING MANUAL, SECOND EDITION (with Leslye Orloff) (1995)