Alumnus/Alumna of the Month

Kevin Ryan (LL.M. '00)

Read an Interview with Kevin Ryan.

Kevin M. Ryan is the first commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families and serves as a member of Governor Jon S. Corzine's Cabinet. He previously served as the commissioner of the Department of Human Services in 2006 and as New Jersey's first child advocate from 2003 to 2006. Before becoming child advocate, Ryan represented homeless youth at Covenant House in New York City’s Times Square, the South Bronx, Newark and Atlantic City.

In 1997, he founded Covenant House New Jersey's Youth Advocacy Center. Over the past ten years, the Center has provided legal services to thousands of homeless youth. Ryan has helped to craft some of the state's most important social legislation, including the Homeless Youth Act, the Family Care Act, the Foster Care Scholars program, the establishment of the Office of the Child Advocate and the legislation creating the new Department of Children and Families. Harvard Law School recognized his work in 2000 by naming him a Wasserstein Fellow.

Ryan has taught at Fordham Law School, Seton Hall Law School and Rutgers Law School focusing on Poverty Law, Children and the Law, and Constitutional Law. He is the author of numerous articles on poverty, children and the interests of families.

Before receiving an LL.M. from NYU School of Law in 2000, Ryan received a B.A. from The Catholic University of America in 1989 and a J.D. from Georgetown Law Center in 1992.