Feature Stories Campus Events All Stories

New Faculty Join W&L Law W&L Law is pleased to announce the following faculty joining the law school for the upcoming academic year.

newfaculty5x2 New Faculty Join W&L LawNew Faculty 2023-24

W&L Law is pleased to announce the following faculty joining the law school for the upcoming academic year.

Members of the Permanent Faculty

Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett joins W&L Law this fall from the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, where he was as a Visiting Assistant Professor. He will teach Civil Procedure and a Consumer Protection Law seminar, among other classes. Professor Pfeffer-Gillett is an expert in the legal contours and practical effects of modern consumer and employment contracts. His most recent article, “Unfair by Default: Arbitration’s Reverse Default Judgment Problem,” was published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. His work also has appeared in the Minnesota Law Review, the Duke Law & Technology Review, and the California Law Review.

Maureen Edobor ‘17L joins W&L Law this fall as an Assistant Professor of Law. She will also be a core faculty member of the Delaney Center, W&L’s interdisciplinary academic hub that promotes teaching and research on race and Southern identity. Professor Edobor returns to W&L following stints in government and legal education. Most recently, she was the Policy Director and Counsel for the Congressional Black Caucus. Professor Edobor will teach Constitutional Law and courses in voting rights. Recently, her article “Reconstruction’s Last Monument: Judicial Erosion of the Fifteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act” was accepted for publication in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law.

Julie Schwartz joins the Law School this fall as a Professor of Practice teaching legal writing. She comes to W&L Law with 20 years of experience teaching legal writing at Emory Law School. Before entering academia, Professor Schwartz practiced law at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York and at Rogers & Hardin and Kirkley & Payne in Atlanta.

Leila Lawlor joins the Law School as the inaugural Director of Academic Excellence and a Professor of Practice. Previously, she directed the Academic Success Program, the LL.M. Program, and study-abroad partnerships at the Georgia State College of Law. Lawlor has taught Evidence, Introduction to U.S. Law, Lawyering Skills, First Year Professional Development and Academic Success, Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Insurance, and Business Law.

New Visiting Faculty

Sarah Cravens ‘02L joins W&L Law in the fall on a two-year visiting appointment, teaching Conflict of Laws and Professional Responsibility, among other courses. Professor Cravens comes to W&L with both teaching and law school administrative experience, including most recently at the University of Tulsa College of Law, where she has been a Visiting Associate Professor of Law since 2021.

Kari Munro joined the faculty this spring and serves as Acting Director of the Tax Clinic and Professor of Practice. She previously worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, representing the United States in criminal prosecutions involving white collar crime, tax, narcotics, and violent crime.

Carrie Stanton will be a visiting assistant professor during the 2023-24 academic year. She will teach Complex Commercial Contract Negotiations and Mergers & Acquisitions and will lead a section in the annual third-year Business Immersion Program. Professor Stanton was previously a partner at Williams Mullen. In her practice, she represented clients in major business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and capital raising, as well as complex commercial contract negotiations and corporate governance matters. While in private practice, she also served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, teaching courses on commercial transactions and business law.

Heather Skeeles-Shiner ‘04L will be a visiting legal writing professor during the 2023-24 academic year. Professor Skeeles-Shiner is currently a staff attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at Washington and Lee University. Previously, she was an assistant city attorney for the City of Alexandria, an assistant attorney general in the Civil Litigation Division for the District of Columbia, and Senior Counsel in the General Litigation Division of the New York City Law Department. She began her legal career as an associate for Arnold & Porter in New York following a federal clerkship for Judge Norman K. Moon in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

Alex Long will serve as a visiting professor in the spring semester. Professor Long is the Williford Gragg Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law where he teaches and writes in the areas of Torts, Professional Responsibility, Employment Law, and Disability Law. His scholarship in this area has been published in numerous journals, including the Northwestern Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and Emory Law Journal. He is also the co-author of casebooks on Torts, Advanced Torts, and Professional Responsibility.

Tammi Etheridge will join the law school this fall as a visiting professor for the 2023-24 academic year. She is currently a member of the faculty at Elon University School of Law. Professor Etheridge teaches and writes in the areas of administrative law, health law, and food and drug law. Her work generally focuses on government structures, processes, and regulation. She is specifically interested in relationships between government agencies, the legal regulation of emerging technology, and the concomitant impacts on society.

If you know any W&L faculty who would be great profile subjects, tell us about them! Nominate them for a web profile.