[2] She teaches civil rights and family law, specializing in child welfare, adoption and reproductive technology.
Before joining the Harvard Faculty, she was engaged in civil rights and public interest work, first with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and later as founder and director of the Legal Action Center, a non-profit organization in New York City focused on criminal justice and substance abuse issues.
[4][5] Bartholet helped to organize the Summit to Regulate Homeschooling to be held at the Harvard Law School on June 18–19, 2020.
[9] Bartholet's anti-homeschooling views received media attention[10] and drew criticism from homeschool proponents.
[11][12][13] Bartholet's publications include Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative (Beacon Press, 1999) and Family Bonds: Adoption, Infertility, and the New World of Child Production (Beacon Press, 1999), as well as numerous law review articles.