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Professor Melissa L. Breger has been teaching at the law school level for 20+ years, first at The University of Michigan Law School and then at Albany Law School since 2002. Prior to teaching, Professor Breger dedicated her career to children, women and families, with her formative years practicing in New York City in a number of capacities.

She is the recipient of several teaching and service awards, both on a local level and on a national level, including the Shanara C. Gilbert Award in recognition of her excellence in teaching and contributions to the advancement of social justice from the American Association of Law Schools; the L. Hart Wright Excellence in Law Teaching Award from the University of Michigan Law School; and the 2016 Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2018 Faculty Award for Excellence in Service, and 2019 Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship from Albany Law School. Professor Breger also received the Albany County Family Court Children鈥檚 Center Award 鈥渋n recognition of her outstanding and tireless work assisting children and families in need and for her dedication to ensure that law students obtain the skills necessary to provide high quality and compassionate legal services to court litigants鈥� in May 2008.

Professor Breger teaches a variety of courses at Albany Law School, including Evidence, Family Law, Criminal Procedure: Investigation (4th, 5th, 6th A), Gender & the Law, Children, Juveniles & the Law (hybrid online), Domestic Violence Seminar, and Children & the Law. She was the Director of the Family Violence Litigation Clinic from 2002 to 2010.

Professor Breger is the co-author of NEW YORK LAW OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, a two-volume treatise published by Reuters-Thomson-West, as well as the author of numerous law review articles regarding issues of family law, gender, and justice. Her scholarly interests include the rights of children and families, gender and racial equality, procedural justice in the courtroom, juvenile justice, the increasing epidemic of child sexual trafficking, implicit bias, law and culture, family violence, and the intersections between psychology and the law.

Joined Albany Law School in 2000. Previously in private practice with Winston & Strawn in Chicago, specializing in employment-related appellate litigation; visiting professor at University of Toledo College of Law; law clerk to the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Indiana. Research interests include employment discrimination, federalism, and lesbian and gay rights.

Professor Rogerson Directs the Immigration Law Clinic, an experiential course through which students represent immigrant victims of crime including child abuse and neglect, domestic violence and sexual assault. 

Her students also regularly participate in related legislative advocacy and community outreach initiatives. Professor Rogerson worked as a public interest attorney in Newark, New Jersey and has represented immigrant adults and children in cases involving torture, domestic violence, and human trafficking at a human rights non-profit in Dallas, Texas. 

Her scholarship is focused on the intersections between domestic violence, family law, race, gender, international law and immigration law and policy.

Alicia Ouellette wasthe 18th President and Dean of Albany Law School.
As a leader in legal education, Dean Ouellette has championed the value of law schools as drivers of change in communities, society, and the lives of students and graduates. As President and Dean, she has presided over Albany Law School’s execution of a new strategic plan, fulfillment of an institutional affiliation with the University at Albany, expansion into online graduate programs, and launch of a record-setting fundraising campaign, We Rise Together: The Campaign for Albany Law School.
Prior to her appointment as President and Dean, she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Intellectual Life and a Professor of Law. Before joining the law school in 2001, Dean Ouellette was an Assistant Solicitor General in the New York State Attorney General’s Office and a law clerk to the Honorable Howard A. Levine at the New York Court of Appeals. As a scholar, Dean Ouellette focuses on health law, disability rights, family law, children’s rights, and human reproduction. Her book, BIOETHICS AND DISABILITY: TOWARD A DISABILITY CONSCIOUS BIOETHICS, was published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press. She has authored numerous articles published in academic journals such as the American Journal of Law and Medicine, American Journal of Bioethics, Nevada Law Journal, Hastings Law Journal, Indiana Law Journal, and Oregon Law Review. She has presented to distinguished audiences around the globe, including at the Yale School of Medicine and the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. In September 2020, Dean Ouellette was appointed to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution and Implementation Task Force. Dean Ouellette has served in leadership positions for numerous professional and community organizations, including as chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section for Deans, secretary and a board member for the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU), secretary and a board member for the Burdett Birthing Center in Troy, N.Y., and a board member for the University at Albany’s Institute for Health and Human Rights. An alumna of Hamilton College, Dean Ouellette graduated magna cum laude in 1994 from Albany Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Albany Law Review.

Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a Chancellor鈥檚 Professor at the University of California, Irvine and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She is also faculty in the Stem Cell Research Center; Gender and Sexuality Studies Department; Program in Public Health; and the Department of Criminology, Law, & Society. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center. She is an American Law Institute Adviser for the Restatement Third of Torts: Remedies. Professor Goodwin has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and University of Virginia law schools.

Professor Goodwin鈥檚 scholarship is hailed as 鈥渆xceptional鈥� in the New England Journal of Medicine. She has been featured in Politico, Salon.com, Forbes, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, NPR, HBO鈥檚 Vice News, and Ms. Magazine among others. A prolific author, her scholarship is published or forthcoming in The Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Cornell Law Review, NYU Law Review, California Law Review, and Northwestern Law Review, among others. Goodwin鈥檚 publications include five books and over 80 articles, essays and book chapters as well as numerous commentaries.

Trained in sociology and anthropology, she has conducted field research in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, focusing on trafficking in the human body for marriage, sex, organs, and other biologics. In addition to her work on reproductive health, rights, and justice, Professor Goodwin is credited with forging new ways of thinking in organ transplant policy and assisted reproductive technologies, resulting in works such as Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts (2006) and Baby Markets: Money and the Politics of Creating Families (2010).

Jennifer L. Brinkley, an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies, has a J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law, practiced law and taught at both the University of Colorado at Denver and at Western Kentucky University before joining UWF in 2019.  She teaches courses on women and the law, criminal procedure, evidence, legal research and writing, family law, law and society, among others.

Brinkley鈥檚 research focuses on women and the law issues.  She has an interest in gender and the judiciary in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her peer-reviewed work has been published in South Carolina Law Review, LMU Law Review, Kentucky Bench & Bar, The Legal Educator, and The Young Lawyer.

Brinkley has experience working for a civil law firm, in a solo law practice, in a corporate position, and as a prosecutor.

Degrees & Institutions:
Brinkley received a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcasting and a Master of Arts in Criminology from Western Kentucky University.  She earned her J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law. 

Research:
Women and the law
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Gender and the Judiciary in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Criminal law issues
Special Interests:
Outside of the classroom, Brinkley enjoys going to the beach, spending time with her son, and playing with her greyhound, Nui.  Brinkley has been married to her husband, David, since 2005.  They share one child, Gauge.

Publications:
Brinkley, J. (2021) Sanctuary Cities and Counties for the Unborn:  The Use of Resolutions and Ordinances to Restrict Abortion Access. Northern Illinois University Law Review (forthcoming Spring 2021).

Brinkley, J. (2021). Crises Collide:  Examining the Intersection of Sex Trafficking and Opioid Use. Kentucky Law Journal (forthcoming Spring 2021).

Brinkley, J. (2020). A Path Forward: Florida鈥檚 Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking. 71 South Carolina Law Review 3.

Brinkley, J. (2020). Human Trafficking and the Practice of Law. South Carolina Law Review Spring 2020.

Brinkley, J. (2019). Opioid Crisis and the Law: An Examination of Efforts Made in Kentucky, 70 South Carolina Law Review 3.

Brinkley, J. (2019). Ruth Bader Ginsburg:  Examining Her Path to the High Court Bench and its Intersection with the ACLU. 6 Lincoln Memorial Law Review 1.

Brinkley, J.  (2019). The Failure of Amanda鈥檚 Law in Kentucky:  Creating Best Practices for Legislatures Passing Domestic Violence Statutes. Quinnipiac Law Review Fall 2019.

Brinkley, J. (2019).  The Opioid Crisis and the Practice of Law:  An Examination of Efforts Made in Kentucky.  In South Carolina Law Review 70(3).

Brinkley, J. (2019).  Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Examining Her Path to the High Court Bench and its Intersection with the ACLU.  LMU Law Review 6(1).

Shorter Works
Brinkley, J. (2021) Our Rightful Place: A History of Women at the University of Kentucky, 1880-1945. Bench & Bar (forthcoming March 2021).

Brinkley, J. (2021) Covid-19, Disruption, and Teaching Practices, Legal Writing. Journal of Legal Writing Instruction (forthcoming Spring 2021).

Brinkley, J. (2020). RBG Played the Long Game on Making Real Change for Women鈥�and Men. Kentucky Herald-Leader (opinion).

Brinkley, J. (2020). Should We Do Away with Office Hours? InsideHigherEd.com (opinion).

Brinkley, J. (2020) Starting a Prison Reading Group, Jurist.org (commentary).

Brinkley, J. (2019) Richard H. Underwood鈥檚 Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York, 83 Bench & Bar 6 (book review). 

Brinkley, J. (2019) Abortion Access in Kentucky: 2019 Legislative Update, 83 Bench & Bar 22.

Brinkley, J. (2019). Teaching Legal History Through Women and the Law Curriculum. The Legal Educator 34(1).

Brinkley, J. (2010) Top 5 Mistakes that Young Lawyers Make. The Young Lawyer 15(2).

Brinkley, J. (2007). Does That Framed License Mean Anything? Creating Possibilities in the Young Lawyer鈥檚 Career. The Young Lawyer 11(7).

Dale Margolin Cecka joins the faculty of Albany Law as an Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Family Violence Litigation Clinic. Prior to this appointment, Prof. Cecka was a Clinical Professor of Law and the Founder and Director of the Family Law Clinic at the University of Richmond School of Law from 2008-2018. After relocating to Atlanta in 2018, Prof. Cecka served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia and as a Senior Staff Attorney for the Cobb County Superior Court, as well in private family law practice.  
From 2004-2006, Prof. Cecka was a Skadden Fellow at the Legal Aid Society of New York, where she advocated for pregnant and parenting teenagers and adolescents aging out of foster care, primarily in the Bronx Family Court. At the end of her Skadden Fellowship, Prof. Cecka was awarded a Clinical Teaching Fellowship at St. John's University School of Law, and served as the Interim Director of the Child Advocacy Clinic, where she represented children in all five boroughs of New York as well as in Nassau Family Court.
Prof. Cecka's scholarship focuses on the constitutional rights of parents and inequities in the child welfare and family court systems.  Her articles have appeared in the Catholic University Law Review, the University of South Carolina Law School and the West Virginia University Law School, among others, and she was a contributor to the book, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court, published by the Cambridge University Press in 2016.  Prof. Cecka's articles have been cited in several Supreme Courts across the country. For the past 6 years, Prof. Cecka has also been the lead author of the treatise on Family Law for Virginia (Family Law: Theory, Practice and Forms). Prof Cecka has appeared on National Public Radio and in various podcasts and has published an Op-Ed in The Washington Post related to her advocacy in family law and child welfare.
Prof. Cecka obtained her undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1999 and her law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 2004, where she was a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar.

Christine M. Scartz is the director of the University of Georgia School of Law's Jane W. Wilson Family Justice Clinic. She also teaches Family Law and a course for undergraduates titled Law and Social Justice: Strategic Advocacy.
Scartz has been an active member of the Western Judicial Circuit Domestic Violence Task Force and Athens-Clarke County Fatality Review Panel since 2015. She previously served as an Executive Board member of the task force, and she currently chairs the Firearms Surrender Protocol Committee.
Scartz is a 2021-22 Georgia Women’s Policy Institute Fellow. She also served as a UGA Service-Learning Fellow in 2020-2021 and as a university Center for Teaching and Learning Fellow for Innovative Teaching during 2019-20. 
In 1994, after graduating from the School of Law, Scartz established the Protective Order Project for students in the law school’s Public Interest Practicum to provide free representation to low- and no-income victims of domestic violence and stalking in Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties. She received a National Association of Public Interest Law Equal Justice Fellowship, which provided two years of support for her to continue developing the Protective Order Project. During that time, she also served as an adjunct instructor with the school's Public Interest Practicum and Civil Clinics.
Scartz joined the law school's faculty in August 2015. Previously, she was an associate attorney in a private firm in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where she handled a domestic relations and criminal law practice. She also served as an appointed attorney for criminal appeals in the Gwinnett County Superior Court.
She earned her bachelor's degree in history and French, with distinction, from the University of Virginia. She obtained her law degree magna cum laude from UGA, where she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and received the William K. Meadow Award, which recognizes outstanding public interest law students.