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Johanna Bond to Serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at W&L Law

Johanna Bond, professor of law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, has been appointed associate dean for academic affairs by Dean Brant Hellwig.

Bond succeeds Sam Calhoun, who served as associate dean for three years and will return to the faculty following a sabbatical leave. Bond previously served as associate dean during 2012-13, and her administrative experience includes service on W&L’s recent presidential search committee.

“The Law School is fortunate to have Prof. Bond fill this critical role in the senior administration,” said Dean Brant Hellwig. “Her experience and judgment make her ideally suited for the position.  She cares deeply about W&L Law, and I look forward to working with her in the years ahead to chart the Law School’s future.”

A distinguished scholar in the area of international human rights law and gender and the law, Bond has twice been selected as a Fulbright Scholar. In 2001, she traveled to Uganda and Tanzania to conduct research that resulted in her edited book, “Voices of African Women: Women’s Rights in Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania.” In 2014, she studied access to legal aid in Tanzania.

Her recent publications include “CEDAW in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons in Implementation” in the Michigan State Law Review, “Honor as Property” in the Columbia Journal of Gender & Law, “Victimization & the Complexity of Gender in Armed Conflict” in the Santa Clara Journal of International Law, and “A Decade After Abu Ghraib: Lessons in ‘Softening Up The Enemy’ and Sex-based Humiliation” in the Journal of Law and Inequality, and “Gender, Discourse, and Customary Law in Africa” in the Southern California Law Review.

“I am excited to work with Dean Hellwig in maintaining W&L’s tradition of excellence while continuing to innovate as we seek to prepare students for a legal career in the 21st century,” said Bond.

In addition to teaching Family Law and Torts, Bond leads an international human rights practicum in W&L’s innovative experiential curriculum. During the class, students learn to apply the primary international and regional human rights treaties to real-world human rights problems. The class, which includes international travel to investigate possible human rights abuses, results in an official human rights report that foreign governments and organizations can use to address the problems.

Prior to joining the faculty of W&L in 2008, Bond was an associate professor of law at the University of Wyoming and before that a visiting associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center for several years.  She also served as the executive director of the Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program, a non-profit organization housed at Georgetown.

Before beginning her teaching career, Bond was a law clerk for the Honorable Ann D. Montgomery, United States District Court, District of Minnesota from 1997 to 1998. She holds a B.A. from Colorado College, a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and an LL.M from Georgetown University Law Center.