About Mike
Mike Apsan-Orgera is a Summer Fellow in the Peter Gruber Challenging Mass Incarceration Clinic and the Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School's Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. His work focuses on systemic reform efforts aimed at combating mass incarceration and advancing equity in the criminal legal system.
Mike completed his LL.M. with a specialization in criminal justice at UCLA School of Law, where he ranked third in his class. He earned a distinction from the Judge Rand Schrader Pro Bono Program for his extensive pro bono contributions in the El Centro Legal Reentry Clinic and Legal Veterans Clinic.
Mike earned his J.D., summa cum laude, from Nova Southeastern University – Shepard Broad College of Law. He was a member of Nova Law Review and received the Van Horn Group Pro Bono Award for his commitment to pro bono work in the law school's disability law clinic.
Mike's legal experience includes an externship in the Noncapital Habeas Unit (NCHU) of the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Los Angeles, UCLA School of Law’s Prisoners’ Rights Clinic, and Nova’s Veterans Law Clinic and Disability Inclusion and Advocacy (DIAL) Law Clinic. He has also worked as a law clerk for several firms and organizations, including Reid Levin, PLLC, Ramey Litigation Group APC, Apsan Law Offices, Philips Corp., and Avaya, Inc.
Mike’s scholarly interests lie at the intersection of wrongful conviction, bail reform, and preventive detention. His research focuses on non-DNA exonerations of individuals who pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit and how modern bail reform erodes the constitutional presumption of innocence by imposing pretrial preventive detention on legally presumed—and in some cases, factually innocent—individuals before trial.