Professor Orlando Portela Valentín has been a practicing attorney and a law professor for the last 30 years. Started his teaching career as a full-time law professor in his native Puerto Rico in 1995 and since 2016, teaches at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where he is currently Professor of Practice and teaches a course in Comparative Professional Responsibility.
During his teaching career, Professor Portela has taught courses in the following areas: Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Comparative Legal Traditions, Philosophy of Law, Alternative Methods of Dispute Resolution, Critical Legal Theory and Social Justice, Criminology and Social Sciences. Professor Portela was Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Hostos Law School in Puerto Rico and has been a consultant for the curricular reform of the first year of legal studies at the Law School of the University of Córdoba in Argentina. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Inter-American University School of Law.
Currently, Professor Portela has an active law practice as an immigration attorney with Jewish Family and Community Services of Pittsburgh, where he represents unaccompanied immigrant children. Professor Portela also serves as a commissioner on the City of Pittsburgh Ethics Hearing Board.
Other Professional Activities
City of Pittsburgh, Ethics Hearing Board: 2017- Current
PR Bar Association - Ethics Consultant: 2004-2011
PR Bar Association - Ethics Commissioner: 1990-2004
- Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Spain
- PhD, Sobresaliente, Cum Laude, May 2015
- University of Puerto Rico Law School, JD, 1988
- University of Puerto Rico, BA Accounting, Cum Laude, 1985
