For two decades, DU Sturm College of Law Associate Professor Kristian Miccio has worked to change the quality of battered women’s lives in her work as a lawyer, public policy analyst, professor and scholar.
In January, she takes that passion overseas as a Fulbright Scholar. She’ll teach scholarship and advocacy at the University College Dublin Law School in Ireland from January to July.
Miccio, in her sixth year at DU, is a nationally recognized expert on the law as it affects survivors of male intimate violence. She has spoken out for change for battered women and children in courtrooms, boardrooms and the halls of Congress and state legislatures, where she won precedent-setting cases and helped establish new law.
“Now I have an opportunity to cross borders and learn from, as well as teach, Irish law students. Of equal importance is the research aspect of the Fulbright, where I will be listening to members of parliament, the Catholic Church, the battered women’s and feminist movements as I work with these constituencies in understanding how a traditional Catholic country addresses male intimate violence.”
Miccio’s course on accountability of those who commit acts of violence against mothers and children will be interdisciplinary. It will integrate U.S. constitutional, criminal and family law by addressing domestic violence and conceptions of individual and state accountability.
Miccio is excited about her sojourn in Ireland where she can share legal and public policy perspectives with the Irish feminist community and learn how they negotiated the political, religious and cultural conditions that framed a public response to male intimate violence there.
“I am so honored and proud to be representing Colorado and DU law school, two places I hold dearly in my heart,” she says.
A native New Yorker and former New York City prosecutor, Miccio is the founding director and first attorney-in-charge of the Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services of Sanctuary for Families in New York City. The center is the first and largest legal services center in the country. There, she authored legislation, litigated precedent setting cases, and taught professionals in law and medicine about male intimate violence.
At DU, Miccio teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, advanced family law, family law, and seminars on male intimate violence and on the Holocaust. Miccio will be on sabbatical from DU during her time in Ireland.
The Fulbright program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, is the largest U.S. international exchange program. The scholarship was established in 1946 to build relationships between the U.S. and other countries.