During the 2022-2023 academic year, Professor Macfarlane served as Special Counsel to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. There, she worked on the Department’s overhaul of the regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, focusing on the regulations’ higher education provisions.

Her scholarship has appeared in or will appear in the Fordham Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Alabama Law Review, Yale Law Journal Forum, Columbia Law Review Forum, American University Law Review, the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, and the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, among others. She is also a frequent contributor to the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School Bill of Health Blog. Her civil procedure scholarship has focused on federal courts’ local rules and practices. From 2016 to 2019, Professor Macfarlane was a member of the District of Idaho’s Local Rules Advisory Committee and led a review of the rules’ compliance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 83. The Southern District of New York adopted Professor Macfarlane’s recommendations regarding its related cases rules.

She received her J.D., cum laude, from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. After graduating law school, she served as a law clerk to the Hon. Arthur Alarcón, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Hon. Frederick Martone, U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Kat is admitted to practice in New York (active) and California (inactive). She speaks Spanish and Italian.

]]> /faculty-experts/jonathan-martinis/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 01:34:00 +0000 /?post_type=faculty-experts&p=168759 Jonathan Martinis, Esq., J.D., is the Senior Director for Law and Policy in the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University. He is based at BBI’s Washington, D.C. office and leads the institute’s national and international efforts.

Martinis has over 20 years of experience representing and advocating for people with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. He served as lead counsel in Brinn v. Tidewater Transportation District Commission, the first case to hold that people with disabilities have a right to paratransit transportation on a next-day basis. He was also lead counsel in Winborne v. Virginia Lottery, in which the court held that the Lottery must ensure that all private businesses selling Lottery tickets are accessible to people with disabilities.

Most notably, in 2013, Martinis represented Jenny Hatch in the nationally acclaimed “Justice for Jenny” case. Martinis helped Ms. Hatch secure her right to live where and how she wants, to make her own decisions, and direct her own life. Jenny’s case was the first trial to hold that a person with disabilities has a right to engage in “Supported-Decision Making,” where people work with trusted friends, family members, and professionals to help them understand the situations and choices they face, so they may make their own decisions – rather than be subjected to a unnecessary permanent, plenary or full guardianship.