Jane M. Spinak, an authority on children's legal rights and clinical legal education and attorney-in-charge of the Juvenile Rights Division of The Legal Aid Society, has been named Edward Ross Aranow Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia University.

The appointment was made by the University Trustees and announced by Columbia President George Rupp.

Professor Spinak, 43, joined the Columbia faculty as a lecturer in 1982 and was named clinical professor of law in 1989. She teaches a seminar on children and the law and is a co-founder of the Family Advocacy Clinic at Morningside Heights Legal Services, in which students from Columbia's Law and Social Work schools assist families involved with the child welfare system. She is currently on leave from Columbia to serve as attorney-in-charge of the Juvenile Rights Division, where she oversees attorneys and social workers who represent children in Family Court proceedings in New York City.

A 1974 graduate of Smith College, she earned a law degree in 1979 at New York University.

Professor Spinak has conducted training sessions for social services attorneys, law guardians and judges for the American Bar Association and has received national recognition as a teacher. She was on the planning committee for the 1994 Clinical Teachers' Conference and has been a featured speaker at several other national conferences. Her forthcoming article, Reflections on a Case (of Motherhood), will be published in the December issue of the Columbia Law Review. She is the author of two books, "Child Welfare Legal Manual," and "Permanency Planning Judicial Benchbook," which is used by Family Court practitioners and judges throughout New York State.

Professor Spinak recently was named to the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children. She is a member of the New York State Office of Court Administration's Family Court Advisory Council for New York City, and of the New York State Task Force on Permanency Planning for Foster Children, where she is chair of the Court Extension of Placement and Foster Care Review Proceedings Committee. She was for many years the co-director of the Project on Children and War in the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia; has served on the Board of Directors of the New York City Court Appointed Special Advocates; has been a member of the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Children's Rights.

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