WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL - Key Persons
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- Director of Career Programming
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- Associate Professor ( Teaching )
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- Director, Undergraduate and Graduate Programs
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- Senior Communications Specialist, Detroit Equity Action Lab
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- State Training and Development Manager
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- Professor of Law and Political Science
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- Program and Project Assistant
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- Assistant Professor
- Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Assistant Professor ( Clinical ) of Law Director of Externships
Daniel Ellman is an assistant professor (clinical) and the director of externships. Before joining Wayne Law, Ellman worked as a public defender at the Bronx Defenders practicing holistic defense. In addition to litigating criminal cases, he focused on the intersection of the criminal legal system and other fields, including immigration, housing, employment, and family law. Ellman then clerked for the Hon. Richard H. Bernstein on the Michigan Supreme Court. Ellman previously taught at the University of Michigan in the Department of Sociology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and as a bilingual fifth-grade teacher in Washington Heights, New York City.
Ellman earned his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School, where he received a merit scholarship, a public service fellowship, and an outstanding achievement scholarship. He earned a master's degree in teaching from Pace University and a bachelor of arts, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College. Ellman was voted Wayne Law Upper-Class Professor of the Year in 2023 and received the 2023 Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award.
Dan Ellman was named director of externships and assistant professor (clinical) at Wayne State University Law School.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor ( Clinical ) of Law Director of the Disability Law Clinic
Dean Bierschbach received his bachelor's degree in history (summa cum laude) from the University of Michigan (1994) and his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School (1997), where he won the Daniel H. Grady Prize for graduating first in his class and the Henry M. Bates Award, the law school's highest honor. He has held various leadership positions within the American Bar Association and is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.at Wayne State University Law School. He previously taught at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, where he also served as Vice Dean.
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- Director of Employment Outcomes, Analytics and Bar Success
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- Director, Washington Office
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- Senior Program Specialist
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- Faculty Director, LL.M. Program
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of Business Affairs
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- Counsel
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of the Program for International Legal Studies
- Director of the Program for International Legal Studies Professor
- Member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International
Biography
Gregory Fox is the director of the Program for International Legal Studies. Professor Fox is a widely cited authority on international law and international organizations and a leader in a variety of academic and professional organizations. He joined Wayne Law in 2002. Prior to joining the Wayne Law faculty, Fox was an assistant professor of law at Chapman Law School in Orange, California.
In the winter 2013 semester Professor Fox was a visiting professor at the Universidad IberoInteramicana in Mexico City. In the winter 2009 semester he was a visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University. In 2015 he was a scholar-in-residence at the London offices of WilmerHale.
He began his legal career in the litigation department of Hale & Dorr (now WilmerHale) in Boston, where he worked on one of the early cases brought under the Alien Tort Statute, Forti v. Suarez-Mason. He held fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, and at the Schell Center for Human Rights at Yale Law School before beginning his teaching career. From 1992-95 he was the co-director of the Center for International Studies at New York University Law School. He also served as a law clerk to the Hon. Alan H. Nevas of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.
Fox is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation/Social Science Research Council Fellowship in International Peace and Security. That fellowship allowed him to write "The Right to Political Participation in International Law," 17 Yale J. Int'l L. 539 (1992), which is one of the 10 most cited articles ever published in the Yale Journal. During this period, Fox's scholarship focuses on how the world-wide spread of democracy has affected the international legal system. He is the editor (with Brad Roth) of Democratic Governance and International Law (Cambridge 2000), as well as a 20-year update of that volume (also edited with Professor Roth) to be published by Edlward Elgar in 2020.
Fox's next phase of scholarship focused on the external governance of territories. Humanitarian Occupation reviews the U.N.'s experience in administering entire states or portions of states. In a number of critical articles, Fox examines the state of occupation law, arguing against efforts to endow occupying powers with virtually unlimited authority to transform the states they control.
Fox has been a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and was the founding chairman of the Committee on International Human Rights of the State Bar of Michigan. In 2008 he became an expert consultant to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its project on the future of occupation law.
In addition to his academic work, Fox has served as counsel in several international cases. He was co-counsel to the state of Eritrea in the Zuqar-Hanish Islands arbitration with the Republic of Yemen; that determined the status of a group of islands in the southern Red Sea. He also represented a group of Eritreans in U.S. federal court who were forcibly deported from Ethiopia in 1998 and had their property confiscated by the Ethiopian government. And he was counsel in several Alien Tort Statute cases in addition to the Forti case.
Gregory Fox was a speaker at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, D.C. on March 29. He discussed "Legal Techniques for Resolving Armed Conflicts with Non-State Actors."
Greg Fox co-wrote "The Dual Lives of "The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance" with Brad Broth for the American Journal of International Law. The article was part of a symposium in AJIL Unbound marking the 25th anniversary of Thomas Franck's landmark article "The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance." In this article Fox and Roth analyze the strengths and shortcomings of an article that started an important scholarly movement and address one of the central criticisms of Franck's piece. Read the full article.
Greg Foxco-wrote "The Dual Lives of "The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance" with Brad Broth for the American Journal of International Law. The article was part of a symposium in AJIL Unbound marking the 25th anniversary of Thomas Franck's landmark article "The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance." In this article Fox and Roth analyze the strengths and shortcomings of an article that started an important scholarly movement and address one of the central criticisms of Franck's piece. Read the full article.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Law and Social Work
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- Manager, State Training and Development
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of the Levin Center
Biography
James H. (Jim) Townsend, a former member of the Michigan legislature, was named director of the Levin Center at Wayne Law in November 2019. Previously, Townsend practiced law in the Detroit office of Butzel as a member of its Corporate and Real Estate Practice Group.
Prior to joining the firm, he represented the 26th District in the Michigan House of Representatives. He serves on the Michigan Economic Development Corporation's advisory council of the Redevelopment Ready Communities® program.
Before his career in law, Townsend was legislative director in the office of U.S. Representative Nita M. Lowey and worked for U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg. Townsend's private sector experience includes working as a brand manager at Ford Motor Company, founding and directing the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, and leading economic development at the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Townsend graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with Highest Honors in History, earned an M.B.A. and Master of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, and earned his J.D. (cum laude) at Wayne Law where he was elected to the Order of the Coif.
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- Director of the Levin Center
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- Assistant Professor ( Teaching )
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- Public Services Librarian
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Clinical Programs Manager, Staff Attorney
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- Director of Marketing and Communications
- Member of the Leadership Team
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- Distinguished Service Professor of Law Chair, Levin Center at Wayne Law Faculty Committee
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- Associate Professor ( Teaching )
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- Public Services Librarian
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- Director of the Legal Advocacy for People With Cancer Clinic Associate Professor ( Clinical )
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- Assistant Professor ( Teaching )
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- Professor of Law, Adjunct Professor of Political Science
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of Legal Research and Writing Associate Professor ( Teaching )
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- Research and Communications Specialist
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- Professor of Law Faculty Director, Minor in Law Program
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- Civic Education Specialist
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- Fellow, Non - J.D. Programs
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Assistant Dean, Career Success Adjunct Assistant Professor
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- Assistant Professor ( Teaching )
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- Program Manager, Operations and Finance
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- Assistant Professor ( Clinical ) of Law Director of the Business and Community Law Clinic
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- Individual Giving Officer
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- Director, Office of Career and Professional Development
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Appointed Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development
- Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, Professor
- Co - Organized a Day Long Symposium Sponsored by the Chicago - Kent Law Review, Alt - Labor Law
Biography
Michael Oswalt joined Wayne State in 2022 and serves as Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development. He primarily teaches labor and employment law, and his writing focuses on how laws structure workplace relationships and collective advocacy. Michael's current research explores the law and practices surrounding pay secrecy rules and will appear in the Indiana Law Journal. He is also a co-author of two labor law casebooks.
Before joining Wayne State, Michael was a faculty member at Northern Illinois University College of Law and served as the Interim Director of the Martin H. Malin Institute for Law and the Workplace at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law from 2021-2022. He worked in the Office of the General Counsel at the Service Employees International Union from 2009 to 2013.
Michael graduated from Haverford College and has degrees in law and theology from Duke University. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor on the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Michael Oswalt's article, Liminal Labor Law, was reviewed in JOTWELL, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) by Joseph Slater
Michael Oswalt co-organized a day long symposium sponsored by the Chicago-Kent Law Review, Alt-Labor Law: The State of the Law of the New Labor Movement
Michael Oswalt's article, The Content of Coercion, was reviewed in JOTWELL, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) by Martin Malin (July 22, 2019).
Michael Oswalt's article, The Right to Improvise in Low Wage Work, was reviewed in JOTWELL, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) by Anne Marie Lofaso (July 5, 2018).
Michael Oswalt's article, Improvisational Unionism, was reviewed in JOTWELL, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) by Catherine Fisk (November 1, 2016).
Michael Oswalt's article, Preemption and Civic Democracy in the Battle Over Wal-Mart, was cited by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Golden Gate Restaurant Ass'n v. San Francisco, 546 F.3d 639 (9th Cir. 2008) (with Catherine L. Fisk).
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- Public Services Librarian
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- Assistant Director
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Assistant Director, Scholarship Program and Assessment
Biography
Michelle Taylor joined Wayne Law in July 2014 as assistant director, scholarship program.
Previously, she worked for two years as a financial aid counselor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Prior to that, she spent four years as a financial aid officer for Wayne State University.
She holds a bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of Michigan and a master of arts degree in linguistics from Wayne State University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Interim Director of the Arthur Neef Law Library
- Public Services Librarian and Interim Director, Arthur Neef Law Library
Biography
Michelle LaLonde is the Interim Director of the Arthur Neef Law Library and an adjunct professor of law at Wayne State University Law School. She has worked as an academic and federal law librarian for nearly two decades. At Wayne Law, she teaches courses on legal research methods. Her academic areas of interest include copyright law in higher education and libraries, international copyright law, American intellectual property law, and the teaching of legal research.
LaLonde holds a master's degree in Information and Library Science from Wayne State University and earned her law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School. After earning her law degree, she served as a librarian for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Lead Applications Technical Analyst
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- Associate Professor
- Member of the Leadership Team
- and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Belonging
- Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Belonging
Biography
Nancy Chi Cantalupo joined the Wayne State University Law School faculty in 2021. She has also taught as full-time faculty, adjunct faculty, or a fellow at Barry University School of Law, California Western School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, George Washington University Law School, and Temple University Beasley School of Law. Prior to becoming a professor, she practiced with the firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, and served as assistant dean for clinical programs at Georgetown Law, as an associate vice president for equity, inclusion & violence prevention at a higher education professional association, and as a research fellow with the Victim Rights Law Center.
Cantalupo is a nationally-recognized scholar and expert on Title IX, sexual harassment, and gender-based violence in education. Her scholarship draws from her over 25 years of anti-campus sexual harassment and gender-based violence work as a researcher, campus administrator, victims' advocate, attorney, and policymaker and focuses on the use of law to combat discriminatory violence. Cantalupo's articles have appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, Wake Forest Law Review, UC Davis Law Review, California Law Review Online, Yale Law Journal Forum, Utah Law Review, Maryland Law Review, the peer-reviewed social science journal Trauma, Violence & Abuse, Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, and several issues of the Journal of College & University Law. She also has been invited to write several book chapters, as well as op-eds for the Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, and Time magazine.
In her pro bono work, Cantalupo has consulted with President Obama's White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, participated on a U.S. Senate roundtable, served as a Negotiator on the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee that amended regulations for the Clery Act, and testified before the Maryland and Virginia state legislatures. She has also chaired the board of D.C. Law Students in Court and served on the Advisory Boards for SurvJustice and The Clery Center for Security on Campus, as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Asian/Pacific-Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project and the Conference for Asian Pacific American Law Faculty. In 2016, she co-authored "Title IX & the Preponderance of the Evidence: A White Paper," signed by over 115 law professors from across the country and from 2017-19 was asked by the American Bar Association's Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence to draft and edit (based on feedback from peer reviewers) its Recommendations for Improving Campus Student Conduct Processes for Gender-Based Violence (pdf).
Nancy Cantalupo was published in Women's Media Center's News & Features on the 50th anniversary of Title IX, "The Future of Title IX."
Nancy Chi Cantalupo's work was cited by the California Department of Justice in their amicus brief in a case currently before the California Supreme Court. Both Cantalupo's book chapter and the ABA recommendations for which she was the primary drafter were cited.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of Non
- Senior Assistant Dean, Enrollment Management and New Program Development
Biography
Nikki Taylor-Vargo joined Wayne Law in October 2019 as director of non-J.D. programs where she was responsible for implementing and managing the Master of Studies in Law, Master of Laws, B.A. in Law, and the undergraduate Minor in Law program. In winter 2021, she was promoted to assistant dean of non-J.D. programs and in December 2023 she was promoted to Senior Assistant Dean of Enrollment Management and New Program Development where she oversees all undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs.
Prior to joining Wayne Law, Taylor-Vargo worked for the WSU College of Engineering as the Program Manager for the MS in Data Science and Business Analytics and Cyber-Physical Systems Graduate Certificate programs. In her role as program manager, Taylor-Vargo managed the functions of the programs, including marketing and brand development, new program development, recruitment and retention, and program assessment.
Taylor-Vargo graduated with distinction from the University of Michigan-Flint (UM-Flint) School of Management, where she received her Masters of Business Administration degree. Several years after graduation, she returned to UM-Flint as the program director for both undergraduate and graduate business programs.
Taylor-Vargo has a special interest in the mental health of students and recently completed a course that trained her to provide initial help to people experiencing problems such as depression, anxiety, etc.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights Professor of Law a. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair
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- Assistant Professor ( Teaching ) of Law Faculty Director, Master of Studies in Law Program
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Associate Professor
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Registrar
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of Clinical Education
- Director of Clinical Education Assistant Professor ( Clinical )
- Director of Clinical Education at Wayne State University Law School.
Rebecca Robichaud is director of clinical education and an assistant professor (clinical). Prior to her appointment as director of clinical education, she was director of externships. She began teaching as an adjunct faculty member at Wayne Law with the Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic in 2012. She also taught the Public Interest Externship Colloquium course.
Robichaud is an experienced immigration attorney whose work focuses on asylum and removal defense. For more than a decade she worked with immigration clients from around the globe including Egypt, Yemen, Rwanda, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, El Salvador and Guatemala. In addition to her immigration work, she represented health law clients in a variety of matters as a partner in the firm Fehn, Robichaud & Colagiovanni. She worked with clients on contract issues, government audits and various litigation matters. Prior to that Robichaud served as the legal director at a local non-profit representing asylum seekers. She served as a post-graduate law clerk with the International Union of the United Auto Workers. During law school she worked with the Legal Aid and Defender Association in Detroit and the Office of the Child Advocate in Georgia as a law clerk.
Robichaud earned her J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School and her B.A in political theory and constitutional democracy from James Madison College at Michigan State University.
Rebecca Robichaud co-led with Rachel Settlage a session at the 2018 Midwest Clinical Legal Education Conference on Oct. 6. The session was called, "Clinic and Externship Collaboration: Infrastructure for a Successful Experiential Education Program."
Job Titles:
- Fellowship Program Manager, Detroit Equity Action Lab
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Dean and John W. Reed Professor
Biography
Richard A. Bierschbach is Dean and John W. Reed Professor of Law at Wayne State University Law School. He previously taught at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, where he also served as Vice Dean.
Dean Bierschbach is an award-winning teacher and a leading scholar of criminal law and procedure. His research explores how the criminal justice system's institutional and procedural structure intersects with its substantive and regulatory aims. His work has appeared in numerous top law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, the Michigan Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the Georgetown Law Journal, among others. While at Cardozo, he twice received the Best Professor Award from the law school's graduating class.
Before entering academia, Dean Bierschbach clerked for Judge A. Raymond Randolph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1997-98) and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court (2000-01). Between those clerkships, he served as a Bristow Fellow in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Solicitor General and an Attorney-Advisor in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. He has also worked in the New York offices of three international law firms-Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale), Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe-as a member of their Supreme Court and appellate litigation practices.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Director of Philanthropy
Biography
Rob MacGregor was named senior director of philanthropy at Wayne Law in May of 2017. He has an extensive background in asset and wealth management, financial consultation and investment specialization. He previously was director of planned giving for Wayne State University. At Wayne Law, he is responsible for providing leadership, direction and management of the law school development and alumni affairs team, manages fundraising strategy and initiatives, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of gifts.
In the past 25 years, MacGregor has solicited and managed investments and assets for individual clients and high net worth groups, owned and operated an independent financial services office, cross sold and managed investment products, developed and delivered wealth management strategies, and utilized sophisticated planning tools and bequests in an effort to grow operating revenue and endowments. MacGregor's substantive financial planning background uniquely positions him in assisting donors in determining the most efficient assets for gifting.
MacGregor earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Colorado in 1983 and went on to earn his law degree from the University of Detroit in 1986. He is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and a Certified Financial Planner. He also holds an additional licensure in Life, Accident and Health Insurance. MacGregor is past president of the Planned Giving Roundtable of Southeast Michigan where he currently sits on the Mentor Committee, and is a member of the Financial and Estate Planning Council of Metro Detroit.
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Executive Assistant to the Dean
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- Academic Services Officer I and Community Education Outreach Coordinator
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- Director of the Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic
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- Instructional Technology Designer / Suite 3200
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- Assistant Professor ( Teaching )
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Director, Administration and Accreditation
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Assistant Dean of Student Affairs
Biography
Tierney Eaton Hoffman is Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Wayne State University Law School. Hoffman, a proud Wayne Law alumna '08, returned to her alma mater in 2023, to serve as Assistant Director of Student Engagement and Culture where she helped develop and implement programming, for diverse students and student groups to enhance the culture of the Law School. Prior to entering academia, she co-founded Priority Law Group where she represented small businesses and nonprofits in a variety of transactional legal matters, including business planning, contracting drafting, and real estate acquisition. Hoffman has extensive experience working on various contract and regulatory investigations for multi-district litigation matters. She began her legal career as an associate in a bankruptcy litigation practice where she oversaw both consumer and commercial bankruptcy matters for debtors and creditors.
Hoffman earned a dual degree in Comparative Women's Studies and Psychology from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. She continued her education as a Barrister Scholar at Wayne State University Law School, where she obtained her Juris Doctorate. During law school she studied international law in England, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. She also had the privilege to intern with the Honorable Nancy G. Edmunds in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Hoffman's interests are in the area of academic achievement, diversity, equity, and belonging, and law student mental health and well-being. Her research explores cohort learning and its impact on the academic success and socio-emotional experience of law students.
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- Clinical Programs Staff Attorney
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- Distinguished Professor of Constitutional