Bio:

Dr. Lens worked as a public interest lawyer for fifteen years, combining her social work and legal skills. As a legal aid lawyer she provided legal services to the poor in the areas of public assistance, Social Security disability benefits, SSI, and Medicaid. Dr. Lens brought several class action lawsuits on behalf of welfare recipients and homeless families, establishing a right to shelter and expanding entitlements to public assistance. As an assistant attorney general under New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams she established the Suffolk County Public Advocacy Unit, which was responsible for prosecuting businesses for civil fraud and protecting the public from economic exploitation. Dr. Lens has also served in various administrative positions, including as Director of Investigations and Complaints at the Suffolk County Executive's Office of Consumer Affairs. Her primary interest is in exploring the intersection between law, social work and social policy.

Research Interests:

• Administrative justice in public welfare bureaucracies
• Welfare reform
• Socio-legal studies

Current Projects:

• Ethnographic study of administrative fair hearings, funded by the National Science Foundation  
• Adolescent Representation project, with Columbia Law School, examining the representation of youth involved in juvenile delinquency and child welfare proceedings

Select Publications & Presentations:

Journal Articles
Lens, V. & Cary, C. (in press). Negotiating the discourse of race within the United States welfare system. Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Lens, V. (in press). R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The missing policy tool in welfare reform. Social Work.

Lens, V. (in press). Confronting government after welfare reform: Moralists, reformers, and narratives of (ir)responsibility at administrative fair hearings. Law & Society Review.

Lens, V. (in press). Seeking Justice; Citizens use of Fair Hearings to correct errors in public welfare bureaucracies. Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory.

Lens, V. (2008). Welfare and work sanctions: Examining discretion on the front lines. Social Service Review, 82, 197-222. 

Lens, V. (2007). Administrative justice in public welfare bureaucracies:
When citizens (don’t) complain. Administration & Society 39 (3), 382-408.

Lens, V. (2007). In the fair hearing room: Resistance and confrontation in the welfare bureaucracy. Law & Social Inquiry 32 (2), 309-332.

Lens, V. (2006) Examining the administration of work sanctions on the front lines of the welfare system. Social Science Quarterly 87, 573-590.

Lens, V. (2006) Work sanctions under TANF: Are they helping women achieve self-sufficiency? Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy 13, 255-284.

Lens, V. ( 2005). Bureaucratic disentitlement: Are fair hearings the cure? Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy 12, 13-54.

Lens, V. and Vorsanger, S. (2005). Complaining after claiming: Fair hearings after welfare reform. Social Service Review 79, 430-453.

Lens, V. (2005 ). Advocacy and argumentation in the public arena: A guide for social workers. Social Work 50, 231-238.

Presentations
Lens, V. Contesting the Bureaucracy: Examining Administrative Appeals. Law and Society Association Annual Conference, Denver, CO. May 2009.

Lens, V. Administrative Justice in Public Welfare Programs. Law and Society Association and the Canadian Law and Society Association,
Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada. May 2008.

Last updated August 11, 2009.