About Mike
Mike Apsan-Orgera is a Law Graduate Fellow at Americans for Immigrant Justice (AI Justice) in Miami, Florida. His work is informed by his prior experience as a Summer Fellow in the Peter Gruber Challenging Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice Advocacy Clinics at Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, where his efforts focused on systemic reforms aimed at advancing equity in the criminal legal system.
Mike earned his LL.M. with a specialization in Criminal Justice from UCLA School of Law, graduating third in a class of 214. At UCLA, he received a distinction from the Judge Rand Schrader Pro Bono Program for his contributions to the El Centro Legal Reentry and Veterans Legal Clinics. He obtained his J.D., summa cum laude, from Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Shepard Broad College of Law, where he was a member of the Nova Law Review and received the Van Horn Group Pro Bono Award for his work in NSU’s disability law clinic.
His practical experience includes an externship in the Noncapital Habeas Unit at the Los Angeles Office of the Federal Public Defender, as well as extensive clinical work in prisoners’ rights, veterans’ law, and disability advocacy. He has also clerked for several law firms and corporations, 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 convictions, bail reform, and preventive detention. His research examines non-DNA exonerations of individuals who pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit. He also analyzes how modern bail reform can erode the constitutional presumption of innocence by imposing pretrial detention on individuals who are legally—and sometimes factually—innocent.