天美传媒

My research mainly focuses on constitutional law issues, including the First Amendment and social media, same-sex marriage/divorce, criminal procedure and, most recently, the Justices themselves.
I was fortunate to work with two federal judges, the Honorable Jerry Buchmeyer (a legal legend in the Dallas area) and the Honorable Jane J. Boyle. These two individuals taught me not only the importance of law but also the vital nature of justice.

Ava Ayers is an assistant professor of law, and a past Director of the Government Law Center, at Albany Law School.
Before teaching, Ayers worked for nine years in the office of the New York Attorney General, where she was a Senior Assistant Solicitor General. She served both as a supervisor and as lead counsel in various high-profile cases involving immigration law, states’ rights, constitutional rights, environmental law, and other issues. Ayers graduated first in her class from Georgetown Law in 2005. She then clerked for the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for the Honorable Gerard Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ayers is the author of articles on immigration law, federalism, legal ethics, and other subjects, as well as the book A Student’s Guide to Law School, published by the University of Chicago Press. Before her gender transition in 2020, she was known as Andrew Ayers.

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.

Anthony Paul Farley is the James Campbell Matthews Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at Albany Law School. 

He was the James & Mary Lassiter Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law and the Andrew Jefferson Endowed Chair in Trial Advocacy at Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law in 2014-2015, the Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights at CUNY School of Law in 2006, and a tenured professor at Boston College Law School, where he taught for 16 years. Prior to entering academia, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Prior to serving as a federal prosecutor, Farley practiced law as a Corporate/Securities Associate with Shearman & Sterling in NYC.

Professor Farley's work has appeared in chapter form in Bandung Global History and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures (Eslava et al. eds., Cambridge University Press: forthcoming); Hip Hop and the Law (Bridgewater et al. eds., Carolina Academic Press: 2015); After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina (Troutt ed., The New Press: 2007); Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies & the Law (Sarat & Simon eds., Duke University Press: 2003); Crossroads, Directions & a New Critical Race Theory (Valdes et al. eds., Temple University Press: 2002); Black Men on Race, Gender & Sexuality (Carbado ed., NYU Press: 1999); and Urgent Times: Policing and Rights in Inner-City Communities (Meares & Kahan eds., Beacon: 1999). His writings have appeared in numerous academic journals, including the Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, the NYU Review of Law & Social Change, the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, the Michigan Journal of Race & Law, Law & Literature, UCLA's Chicano Latino Law Review, the Berkeley Journal of African American Law & Policy, the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, and the Columbia Journal of Race & Law.

He has presented recent work at Harvard University, Yale Law School, Howard Law School, the University of Kentucky College of Law, University of Minnesota, the University of California at Davis, York University (Toronto, Canada), the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, and elsewhere. He appeared in the short film "Slavery in Effect," a dialog among scholars at Harvard University's conference The Scope of Slavery: Enduring Geographies of American Bondage in 2014.

Professor Farley was nominated and elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2017. He served a three-year term on the Executive Committee of the Minorities Section of the Association of American Law Schools. He has previously served on the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT).

He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the University of Virginia.

Public Interest:
Professor Farley has conducted the reading group - Changing Lives Through Literature - composed of people convicted in the Dorchester District Court. The ten-week course culminates with an in-court graduation ceremony and a reception for participants, friends, relatives, and alumni. Participants have included judges, probation officers and other court personnel, alumni, and even prosecutors. The syllabus includes authors from Frederick Douglass to Primo Levi to Dorothy Day. His efforts have been profiled in David Holmstrom, Staying Out of Jail with Books' Help: Massachusetts Lowers Recidivism by Helping Repeat Offenders Discover the Power of Literature, The Christian Science Monitor, May 30, 1995, at 13.

He is a member of the Society of American Law Teachers and previously served as a member of its Board of Governors. He is a member of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and a previously served as a member of its Board of Directors. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Public Representation. He is also a member of the American Philosophical Association

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.

Stacey Lee, JD, is an Associate Professor of Practice with expertise in business law, health law, and negotiations.鈥疭he is the Academic Program Director for the flagship Full-time MBA program and the Teaching Excellence Initiative Faculty Director. She holds a joint appointment at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research interests have focused on pharmaceutical manufacturers鈥� international and domestic influence on access to medicines and transformative health care negotiations. 

Before entering academia, Lee practiced law for over 10 years. She began as a securities litigator and later became in-house counsel for two of the country鈥檚 largest health care corporations. She also served as the senior regulatory specialist for the United States鈥� largest national health care trade association. 

She is a Fulbright Specialist for her expertise in negotiations and health care law, and has received numerous research grants and fellowships for her teaching innovations. Her research has focused on how COVID-19 laws and policies affect the employer/employee relationship. She has received several awards for faculty excellence, including the Excellence in Teaching Award, year after year, at both Bloomberg and Carey. In addition, she was a featured TEDx speaker on 鈥淧atient Voices.鈥� 

Her interviews, quotes, and writings have appeared on鈥疌BS, CNN, Bloomberg Radio, USA Today, NPR, TODAY.com, and Voice of America, among other media outlets. Lee鈥檚 work has also been featured in several law reviews and peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Yale Journal of Health Policy and Ethics, Annals of Health Law, Aesthetic Surgery Journal, and Health and Human Rights International Journal. 

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).

Dr. David Ramsey, associate professor and department chair, teaches constitutional law and political philosophy.

His first book, 鈥淎ntitrust and the Supreme Court,鈥� examines the Supreme Court鈥檚 role in balancing the contentions of the political branches, business community, enforcement agencies and advocates of various schools of economic thought. He has also contributed chapters to two recent books: 鈥淭he Founders, Hobby Lobby and the HHS Mandate,鈥� in the book 鈥淭he Most Sacred Freedom: Religious Liberty in the History of Philosophy and America鈥檚 Founding.鈥� and 鈥淥n the Marriage of Dred Scott鈥� in the book 鈥淎merican Constitutionalism, Marriage and the Family: U.S. v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges in Context," for which he also served as co-editor.

Ramsey is currently working on preparing a digital edition of the papers of Roger B. Taney, fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864, who authored several consequential opinions that played an important role in developing American law. This will be the first scholarly edition of Taney鈥檚 papers to be published in print or digital format. Once complete, it will fill an important gap in the historical record, providing easy access to new primary sources that will assist scholars currently working to reassess the development of American political institutions, law and society during the 19th century. 

Ramsey received his bachelor鈥檚 degree in government and English from Berry College, his master鈥檚 in liberal arts from St. John鈥檚 College and his doctorate degree in political science from Baylor University.

Jonathan H. Adler is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the  at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches courses in environmental, administrative and constitutional law.
Professor Adler is the author or editor of seven books, including  (Brookings Institution Press, 2020), (Oxford University Press, 2016), Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on Endangered Species Act Reform (AEI Press, 2011) and  (Palgrave). 
His articles have appeared in publications ranging from the Harvard Environmental Law Review and Yale Journal on Regulation to the Wall Street Journal, and New York Times. He has testified before Congress a dozen times, and his work has been cited in the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2021 study identified Professor Adler as the fifth most cited legal academic in administrative and environmental law from 2016 to 2020.
Professor Adler is a contributing editor to National Review Online and a regular contributor to the popular legal blog, . A regular commentator on constitutional and regulatory issues, he has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, ranging from the PBS Newshour and National Public Radio to the Fox News Channel and Entertainment Tonight. Professor Adler is also a senior fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. In 2018, Professor Adler helped co-found the organization Checks and Balances.
In 2004, Professor Adler received the Paul M. Bator Award, given annually by the Federalist Society for Law and Policy Studies to an academic under 40 for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and commitment to students. In 2007, the Case Western Reserve University Law Alumni Association awarded Adler their annual "Distinguished Teacher Award." In 2018, Professor Adler was elected to membership of the American Law Institute.
Prior to joining the faculty at Case Western Reserve, Adler clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 1991 to 2000, Adler worked at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market research and advocacy group in Washington, D.C., where he directed CEI's environmental studies program. He holds a BA magna cum laude from Yale University and a JD summa cum laude from the George Mason University School of Law.
Professor Adler was profiled in the  of the university's Think magazine. 




Research Information

Research Projects






Publications





Education



Juris Doctorate
 
George Mason University
 
2000




Bachelor of Arts
 
Yale University
 
1991

Jonathan Entin has taught Constitutional Law; Administrative Law; Courts, Public Policy, and Social Change; the Law and Social Science Seminar; Law, Legislation, and Regulation; Mass Media Law; Property; and the Supreme Court Seminar for nearly four decades. He also served for nearly eight years as the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs. For many years he has been the faculty advisor to the Case Western Reserve Law Review. He also co-edited the Journal of Legal Education for nearly seven years and was a visiting fellow at the Federal Judicial Center.
He has published more than 100 articles, book chapters, essays, and reviews. His work has appeared in journals at such law schools as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Northwestern, and Texas, as well as in the Administrative Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, Jurimetrics Journal, The Urban Lawyer and a number of social science publications. His 1993 article “Innumeracy and Jurisprudence” received the American Bar Association’s Loevinger Prize for the best work in science and technology law. He also has been a consultant on census issues to the National Research Council and on ethics matters to the Population Association of America.
Entin has received ten teaching awards, including the Distinguished Teacher Award of the Law Alumni Association. Five graduating classes honored him as Teacher of the Year, and two other classes selected him as Administrator of the Year. He also received the Federal Bar Association’s first national award for Excellence in Civics Education.
A graduate of Brown University (AB) and Northwestern University (JD), he was a law clerk to then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she was on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and did appellate litigation at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C., where he helped to exonerate an innocent man who came within hours of execution.




Publications





Education



Bachelor of Arts
 
Brown University
 
1969




Juris Doctorate
 
Northwestern University
 
1981

Jessie Hill, JD, is Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Judge Ben C. Green Professor of Law. She joined the faculty in 2003 after practicing First Amendment and civil rights law with the firm of Berkman, Gordon, Murray & DeVan in Cleveland. Before entering private practice, Hill worked at the Reproductive Freedom Project of the national ACLU office in New York, litigating challenges to state-law restrictions on reproductive rights. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Karen Nelson Moore of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Hill's teaching focuses on constitutional law, civil rights, reproductive rights, and law and religion. Her scholarship has been published in the Michigan Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the Texas Law Review, among others.
Research Interests


Constitutional Law
Law and Religion
Reproductive Rights
Civil Rights

Education



Juris Doctor
 
Harvard University
 
1999




Bachelor of Arts
 
Brown University
 
1992

Caitlain Devereaux Lewis joins Albany Law School after almost seven years with the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress.  At CRS, Lewis first served as a Legislative Attorney covering international trade and intellectual property law for Congress.  She then served as a Supervisory Attorney managing a team of attorneys covering constitutional, health, intellectual property, international trade, tribal, and veterans law.  In addition to authoring numerous reports and white papers for CRS, Lewis also contributed to the Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation, a CRS treatise which provides legal analysis and interpretation of the Constitution based on a review of Supreme Court case law and historical practices.
Prior to joining the legislative branch, Lewis served the federal judiciary for five years, first as Law Clerk to the Honorable Richard K. Eaton ’74 of the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, NY, and then as Law Clerk to the Honorable Evan J. Wallach of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C.
Lewis graduated from Albany Law School as Salutatorian, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Albany Law Review.  Prior to law school, Lewis worked as a librarian and archivist specializing in electronic collections and digitization initiatives, including as Visual Resources Curator at the University at Albany.

Nina Farnia is a legal historian and scholar of Critical Race Theory.  Her scholarship examines the role of modern U.S. imperialism in shaping domestic areas of law, with a particular focus on civil, political, and social rights. Her publications explore a variety of related subjects, including the role of U.S. foreign affairs in shaping modern jurisdiction, the formation of the national security state, and the evolution of the First Amendment.
Farnia has published in a wide range of academic journals and popular media outlets, including the Stanford Law Review, UCLA Women’s Law Journal, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Geopolitical Economy Report, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications.  She currently serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Law & the Humanities.  
Previously, she was an Equal Justice Works fellow and participated on the legal teams for two Supreme Court cases: Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the largest civil rights class action in U.S. history and her fellowship case, Fazaga v. FBI, which challenged the use of government informants in mosques in Southern California.  During law school she clerked for Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and women’s rights attorney Nasrin Sotoodeh in Iran. Prior to attending law school, she was a community organizer in Chicago.
Farnia earned an A.B. from the University of Chicago where she was a Maroon Key Society honoree, a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law where she was an organizer of the inaugural Critical Race Studies symposia, and a Ph.D. from the Department of History at UC Davis, where she was a Provost’s Fellow and a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.
At Albany Law School, she teaches Civil Procedure in the 1L curriculum and Constitutional Law II, Critical Race Theory, Employment Law, and a seminar on Critical Legal History to upper level students.  
Follow Dr. Farnia on Twitter at .

Dr. Hallenbrook teaches courses in political theory, American politics, and constitutional law. His research focuses on conceptions of political obligation in the Anglo-American world, as well as how political theory informs modern public policy debates (including gun control and climate change policy). His work has been published by the Review of Politics and Critical Policy Studies.

Dr. Blackstone holds an appointment as professor of political science. Her research considers the U.S. Supreme Court's role in American policymaking and the development of legal rules in the U.S. courts of appeals. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, Law & Society Review, PS: Political Science & Politics, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Research and Politics, among others. She teaches courses on American government, the U.S. Congress, judicial politics and constitutional law.  
Dr. Blackstone earned a master of arts and a doctorate in political science at Emory University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Indiana University. She served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow from 2008-2009. Before coming to JMU in 2022, Dr. Blackstone was the associate dean for the Honors College at the University of North Texas.