Professor Segal has served as a litigator and an advocate for the poor and
disadvantaged. In law school, she represented clients as an active member of the Harvard
Legal Aid Bureau, a student-run legal services office. Following graduation, she
practiced as a staff attorney for the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, Illinois
and for the Delaware County Legal Assistance Association, in Chester, Pennsylvania. She
represented individual clients in a wide variety of cases, including housing, consumer,
employment, public benefits and domestic abuse matters. In Illinois, she was also counsel
in class action litigation successfully challenging reductions in General Assistance
benefits, protecting inmates’ rights in prison disciplinary proceedings and obtaining
damages for consumers injured in a revolving repossession scheme in violation of the UCC.
In Delaware County, Professor Segal specialized in public benefits and in public and
subsidized housing matters, where she represented many individuals and was also lead
counsel in federal litigation which caused the Chester Housing Authority to create both
an admissions procedure and a grievance procedure. 

Professor Segal began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1994.
While teaching in their Civil Practice Clinic, her areas of practice expanded to
encompass civil rights, civil forfeiture, family law and special education. She also
supervised student externships at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, the Office
of General Counsel of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the
Environmental Protection Agency. Professor Segal joined the Villanova faculty in 1999. 

Professor Segal has been active in a number of professional and civic organizations,
including the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Family Law Section (Custody Committee), the
Public Interest Section (Delivery of Legal Services Committee) and she is an appointed
member of the Investigative Division of the Commission on Judicial Selection. Professor
Segal is a coordinator of the Delaware Valley Clinical Workshop, a member of the Board of
Directors of HIAS and Council, a past Board member of the Northwest Interfaith Movement
and the past president of the Germantown Jewish Centre.