Luz M. Molina

Prof. Luz Molina is a 1979 graduate of Tulane University’s School of Law. She is the John P. Nelson Distinguished Professor of Law. She first joined the clinical faculty at Loyola in December 1981 for one year, permanently returning in 1990. Prior to teaching, she practiced law with a non-profit legal services organization in the areas of public benefits and immigration law, with an emphasis on the right of refugees to asylum and withholding of deportation.

Prof. Molina currently supervises student practitioners in a labor and employment law practice as part of her Workplace Justice Project, a project created immediately after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, to redress some of the large-scale abuse of workers earning very low wages. Over the years, through the generous support, first from the Baptist Community Ministries, and thereafter, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Louisiana Bar Foundation, the Project has expanded its work to include worker education and policy related to economic equity. She is involved in various efforts to bring systemic change to the law and the legal profession. She is an active member of the Louisiana Bar Association where she works with other members to improve our most vulnerable citizen’s access to the courts, notably those marginalized by a lack of legal resources, inability to pay, and/or because they have limited English proficiency. 

She is the recipient of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s 2009 David A. Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award.