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Katherine L Evans

Clinical Professor of Law
School of Law

Overview


Kate Evans joined the Duke Law faculty in 2019 as a clinical professor of law and inaugural director of a new clinic focused on immigration law and policy. She previously directed the Immigration Litigation and Appellate Clinic at the University of Idaho College of law, where she also taught Immigration Law and Policy.  She earlier completed a teaching fellowship at the University of Minnesota Law School’s Binger Center for New Americans, where she led the law school’s merits litigation in Mellouli v. Lynch at the U.S. Supreme Court and supervised students in their successful challenge to the prolonged detention of their refugee client. 

Evans published immigration law scholarship in the Minnesota Law Review, Brooklyn Law Review, NYU Review of Law and Social Change, and several practitioner-oriented publications.

Evans received her JD in 2009 from New York University School of Law where she received a Root-Tilden-Kern scholarship for public interest and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. She clerked for Judges Harriet Lansing and Thomas Kalitowski on the Minnesota Court of Appeals and Diana Murphy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She also had a private immigration practice focusing on appellate litigation.

She earned her BA, magna cum laude, at Brown University where she majored in international development studies. She subsequently worked for Doctors Without Borders in New York, Guatemala, and Uganda as an advocate and administrator.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Clinical Professor of Law · 2019 - Present School of Law
Director of Law School Legal Clinics · 2025 - Present School of Law
Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society · 2020 - Present Duke Science & Society, University Initiatives & Academic Support Units

In the News


Published January 17, 2025
Duke’s Immigration Law Clinic Looks to the Future
Published March 7, 2024
Immigrant Rights Clinic Provides Relief from Deportation for 16 Clients
Published October 15, 2019
New Faculty, Bold Thinking

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Recent Publications


Documentation Status and Self-Rated Physical Health Among Latinx Young Adult Immigrants: the Mediating Roles of Immigration and Healthcare Stress.

Journal Article J Racial Ethn Health Disparities · April 2023 Previous research has demonstrated that undocumented Latinx immigrants in the USA report worse physical health outcomes than documented immigrants. Some studies suggest that immigration-related stress and healthcare related-stress may explain this relation ... Full text Link to item Cite

Rebooting America: Immigration

Other Duke Law Magazine · 2021 Link to item Cite
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Education, Training & Certifications


New York University · 2009 J.D.