News

Northwestern Law Welcomes New and Visiting Faculty

August 22, 2014

A number of distinguished scholars will join Northwestern Law in 2014–15, enhancing the diversity of interests and expertise that distinguish the school’s faculty.
 
New Research Faculty
 
Michael Frakes
Associate Professor of Law
 
Interdisciplinary scholar Michael Frakes joins Northwestern Law as a noted expert in law and economics. His research extends to empirical research in the areas of health law and innovation policy.
 
“Combining law and economics is something that I have found intellectually stimulating,” said Frakes. “The overlap between the two has made my research and academic scholarship particularly fulfilling.”
 
As an undergraduate economics student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Frakes had a research opportunity that focused on health economics. With a solid intention to study law after graduating, he was able to meld his interests in economics and law, enrolling in a concurrent JD-PhD program at Harvard. Frakes was an Aging and Health Economics Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an Academic Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.
 
Through these programs he forged an academic career rooted in empirical research that focuses on how certain legal and financial incentives affect the decisions of physicians and other healthcare providers. He also explores innovation policy with regard to financing the US Patent Office and key aspects of its decision making.
 
He plans to incorporate his research into certain sessions of his first-year torts class, addressing the role of custom in setting the negligence standard in medical malpractice. “I want students to understand both the substance of tort rules and the justifications for such rules,” said Frakes. “It will be my goal that my students cease searching for a right answer to every question and rather get them to think analytically, like lawyers.
 
Destiny Peery
Assistant Professor of Law
 
Destiny Peery (JD-PhD ’12) cemented her interests in social science and law as a summer undergraduate research assistant at the American Bar Foundation with Professor Shari Diamond. Diamond encouraged Peery to enroll in Northwestern’s JD-PhD program to deepen her interests and training in research at the intersection of law and psychology.
 
Now she returns to the Law School, where she served as an articles editor for the Journal of Law and Social Policy, to teach and build upon her existing research on race, identity, and inequality from a law and psychology perspective.
 
“The Northwestern Law community offered me a wonderful experience as a student, so it’s great to return to work alongside faculty members who were integral to my personal and professional growth,” said Peery. “I’m excited to work with the students and faculty who contribute to the school’s great reputation.”
 
Peery previously taught at Duke Law School, where her interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching explored the role of psychological and legal processes in shaping the construction of social categories like race, as well as the use social science research as evidence in legal settings.
 
“Through my research and teaching I aim to use psychology to shed light on various aspects of law, including how legal actors interpret and apply rules and standards, with an emphasis on how those interpretations may be biased in various ways,” said Peery. This academic year, she will teach Race, Social Science, and the Law in the fall and Criminal Law in the spring.

Deborah Tuerkheimer
Professor of Law
 
Deborah Tuerkheimer’s passion for justice, fairness, and gender equity has propelled her research in the areas of criminal law, domestic violence, feminist legal theory, and the intersection of science and criminal justice. Now as a new Northwestern Law professor she counts it “a privilege to continue to teach and write about issues that [she] cares deeply about.”
 
After graduating from Yale Law School and clerking for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Jay Rabinowitz, Tuerkheimer worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for five years. As a budding attorney, she prosecuted domestic violence, child abuse, and sex crimes.
 
“I think that my time prosecuting these crimes fueled my passion for this work. I went into teaching in part to share insights gained practicing criminal law and in part to write to influence law reform efforts,” said Tuerkheimer. “I care deeply about criminal law and the lives of women and children, which is why these areas of overlap continue to be the focus of my scholarship.”
 
In the fall Tuerkheimer will teach Criminal Law and Feminist Jurisprudence—a class whose casebook, Feminist Jurisprudence, Cases and Materials, she coauthored with Professor Kimberly Yuracko. “Every class that I teach covers a certain substantive area, and I want students to leave with a grounding in that substantive area of law,” said Tuerkheimer. “I also want students to think critically about the relevant policy issues and the practical implications of the theory and doctrine we discuss so that they can apply this knowledge in the real world.”
 
Much of Tuerkheimer’s scholarship focuses on the inadequacies and slow evolution of domestic violence law and explores the disconnect between criminal law and the social understandings of sexual violence. Her most recent book, Flawed Convictions: “Shaken Baby Syndrome” and the Inertia of Injustice, was published this year by Oxford University Press.
 
Prior to coming to Northwestern Law, Tuerkheimer taught Criminal Law, Feminist Jurisprudence, and Domestic Violence at DePaul University. She was previously a professor at the University of Maine School of Law, where she also taught criminal procedure and evidence.
 
New Clinical Faculty and Lecturers
 
Gregory Swygert
Clinical Associate Professor of Law
As a partner at Ryan & Swygert since 2012, Gregory Swygert (JD’ 03) represented clients in criminal defense, criminal appeals, and commercial litigation. His prior experience includes working as a staff attorney for the Illinois Office of the State Appellate Defender, practicing plaintiff’s civil rights law at Loevy & Loevy, clerking for the Hon. Arthur J. Tarnow for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, and defending individuals on Louisiana’s Death Row.
 
Mary Foster
Lecturer
Legal ethics expert Mary Foster currently serves as the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission’s Counsel for Review Board and teaches a variety of continuing legal education programs in ethics and professionalism to lawyers, law firms, and non-profit organizations.
 
Wendy Muchman
Lecturer
Wendy Muchman’s work focuses on professional responsibility and disciplinary law. She is the chief of litigation and professional education for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, a role she has held since 1989. Prior to joining the commission, she litigated at several law firms in state and federal court.
 
Kevin O’Hara
Lecturer (beginning spring 2015)
Kevin O’Hara is the principal and managing member of Kevin Seamas Enterprises, where he deals with private equity and real estate investments. O’Hara previously served as chief executive officer in the Trading Division of the Gulf Finance House in Bahrain and on the Chicago Board of Trade.
 
Visiting Faculty
 
Maria Hawilo
Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor of Law (returning for 2014–15)
Maria Hawilo returns to the Bluhm Legal Clinic for a second year as a visiting assistant professor of law. Hawilo will continue to coteach the Juvenile Justice Criminal Trials and Appeals Clinic with Thomas F. Geraghty (JD ’69) and help supervise students assigned to criminal cases. Previously she served as a supervising attorney for the District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service, representing clients charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and other serious felonies. Hawilo clerked for the Hon. David W. McKeague, currently on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
 
Morton Horwitz
Visiting Professor of Law (fall 2014)
Morton Horwitz is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History Emeritus at Harvard Law School. His first book, The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860, is considered one of the most important contemporary books in the American legal canon and won the Bancroft Prize in 1978. Horwitz is also the author of The Transformation of American Law, 1870–1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy and The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice.
 
Heidi Kitrosser
Visiting Professor of Law (2014–15)
Heidi Kitrosser is visiting from the University of Minnesota Law School,
where she teaches constitutional law, First Amendment law, and government secrecy. Her research interests include constitutional law, specifically free speech, separation of powers, and government secrecy. Kitrosser has clerked for the Hon. William Rea on the District Court for the Central District of California and for the Hon. Judith Rogers on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was also an associate at the Washington, DC, office of Jenner & Block.
 
Pierre Legrand
Visiting Professor of Law (spring 2015)
Pierre Legrand is professor of law at the Université Panthéon–Sorbonne, where he is responsible for the postgraduate program on globalization and legal pluralism after serving for 10 years as director of postgraduate comparative legal studies. Legrand has held visiting professorships at a number of universities and has taught and lectured in more than 20 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, China, Brazil, Singapore, and European nations. His teaching and writing focuses on comparative legal studies with reference to theoretical issues arising from comparative interventions. He publishes in English and French, and his work has been translated into other languages.
 
Bruce Markell
Visiting Professor of Law (fall 2014)
Bruce Markell is the Jeffrey A. Stoops Professor at Florida State University’s College of Law. Before joining Florida State’s faculty, Markell was a United States bankruptcy judge for the District of Nevada. He was also a member of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Markell has written many books and articles focusing on bankruptcy, securitization, contracts, and commercial law. He is a conferee of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy (where he is currently the Scholar in Residence), a member of the International Insolvency Institute, and a member of the American Law Institute.
 
Leonard Riskin
Visiting Professor of Law (fall 2014)
Leonard Riskin, Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, returns this fall to Northwestern Law, where he has served as a visiting professor each fall since 2010. Riskin’s work centers on mindsets with which lawyers and other dispute resolvers approach their work. Since 1980 he has been mediating, writing about mediation, and training lawyers and law students in mediation and other methods of dispute resolution. He also teaches and studies mindfulness as a method of enhancing performance and satisfaction. He previously served as C. A. Leedy and Isidor Loeb Professor of Law at the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Law, where he was founding director of the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution.
 
Meredith Martin Rountree
Visiting Assistant Professor (returning for 2014–15)
Meredith Martin Rountree teaches criminal law and a seminar on law and society research. Prior to joining Northwestern Law, Rountree spent a year as a doctoral fellow at the American Bar Foundation and a year as a research fellow in the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas School of Law. Before pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, she taught at the University of Texas School of Law, where she helped establish the Capital Punishment Center and codirected its Capital Punishment Clinic. Rountree’s doctoral work focused on the study of crime, law, and deviance, and her dissertation research examined the phenomenon of death-sentenced individuals seeking execution. She is currently engaged in empirical research on “guilty but mentally ill” verdicts in capital murder cases.
 
Julie Waterstone
Visiting Clinical Professor of Law (2014–15)
Julie Waterstone (JD ’00) is visiting from Southwestern Law School, where she is the associate dean for experiential learning and a clinical professor of law. At Southwestern, Waterstone teaches and directs the Children’s Rights Clinic and teaches a Special Education Law Seminar. Her work focuses on the rights of children, particularly in the areas of special education and school discipline.
 
Michael Waterstone
Visiting Professor of Law (2014–15)
Michael Waterstone, an expert on disability and civil rights law, is the J. Howard Ziemann Fellow and Professor of Law at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where he recently completed a term as associate dean for research and academic centers. In addition to writing on disability law and policy, Professor Waterstone has consulted with the Harvard Project on Disability, worked with nongovernmental organizations and foreign states on disability laws, and testified before a United States Senate subcommittee on voting for people with disabilities. Before entering teaching, Waterstone clerked for the Honorable Richard S. Arnold on the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and worked as an associate in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles, and Olson.
 
Lawrence Zelenak
Visiting Professor of Law (2014–15)
Lawrence Zelenak is the Pamela B. Gann Professor of Law at Duke Law School, where he teaches courses in income tax and corporate tax, as well as a tax policy seminar. Zelenak has written several books on federal income taxation. His most recent is titled Learning to Love Form 1040: Two Cheers for the Return-Based Mass Income Tax. In addition to his books, Zelenak has also published many articles on tax policy issues. His work has appeared in the Duke Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, and the Michigan Law Review, among other publications.