For some law schools, COVID-19 put a pause on hiring and other plans, but the Maurer School of Law has bolstered its faculty ranks since the start of the pandemic. The University of Chicago Law School’s Aneil Kovvali was announced last week (April 15) as Indiana Law’s most recent faculty hire, bringing to eight the total number of exceptional scholars and teachers who have joined the Law School over the past two years.
“The Law School is known for attracting the best and brightest to Bloomington. Its faculty is filled with leading interdisciplinary scholars, who care deeply about student learning and the student experience, while doing much to serve the public in different ways,” said Dean Austen Parrish. “The best law schools carefully weave together their teaching, research, and service missions, and the Maurer School of Law does that exceptionally well. By doing so, the school prepares the next generation of lawyers and leaders, who will make a difference in a rapidly globalizing legal profession.”
“Our latest hires build on our already impressive roster of exceptional faculty,” said Parrish, “and further underscores the school’s deep commitment to our innovative and uniquely well-rounded approach to legal education.” Noting that two of our new hires have already received teaching awards after just their first year teaching, and have already published influential books and articles garnering national attention, he added: “We have some of the most talented law faculty in the United States, and I’m proud that the law school continues this tradition of excellence.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Law School has added, or will add to its faculty:
Aneil Kovvali (Fall 2022): Professor Kovvali and his family will move to Bloomington this summer, where he will teach corporate and business law courses for the Law School. Professor Aniel Kovvali joins the law school from the University of Chicago School of Law, where he most recently served as a Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law. Prior to serving as a Bigelow Fellow, Prof. Kovvali was a litigation associate at some of the nation’s most prestigious law firms, including Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Sullivan & Cromwell. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Christopher F. Droney of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prof. Kovvali received his JD, master’s (statistics), and undergraduate degrees from Harvard. Prof. Kovvali’s most recent work on corporate governance is forthcoming in the Columbia, Cornell, and Minnesota law reviews.
Kellye Testy (Spring 2022): In spring 2022, the school celebrated a bit of a homecoming as Kellye Testy returned to the Law School as a distinguished visiting professor of law, teaching Corporations Law. Since 2017, Prof. Testy has served as president and chief executive officer of the Law School Admission Council. A national leader, Prof. Testy previously served as the 14th and first woman dean at the University of Washington School of Law, and previously the first woman dean at Seattle University’s School of Law. A prolific scholar, outstanding teacher, and experienced administrator, Testy focuses her research and scholarship on contracts, corporate governance, business entities, leadership, and access to justice. Named the nation’s second most influential leader in legal education in 2017 by the National Jurist, Prof., Testy served as the president of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) in 2016. Prof. Testy graduated summa cum laude from the Maurer School of Law in 1991, where she was editor-in-chief of the Indiana Law Journal, John H. Edwards University Fellow, Chancellor’s Scholar, and member of the Order of the Coif. After graduation, she clerked for Judge Jesse E. Eschbach, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
India Thusi (Fall 2021): Holding a joint appointment with the Kinsey Institute, where she serves as a senior scientist, Prof. Thusi is one of the nation’s leading experts on racial and sexual hierarchies as they relate to policing, race, and gender, as well as criminal law and criminal procedure. Having joined the Law School this past fall, her most recent book—Policing Bodies Law, Sex Work, and Desire in Johannesburg (Stanford University Press)—was released this past December to much acclaim. Her work is inextricably connected to her previous legal experience at organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and The Opportunity Agenda. Prior to joining academia, she clerked for Judge Robert L. Carter, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; Judge Damon J. Keith, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and Justice van der Westhuizen at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country’s highest court. Among other acknowledgements, Prof. Thusi was selected as a Fulbright U.S. Global Scholar for 2020-2023. Her paper “Reality Porn” was selected for the 2020 Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum, and she was recognized as a Top 40 Rising Young Lawyer by the American Bar Association in 2019.
João Marinotti (Fall 2021): Building on the Law School’s growing expertise in law and technology, Prof. Marinotti joined the Law School in fall 2021, while serving as affiliated fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project, and an affiliate at Indiana Law’s Center for Intellectual Property Research. Prof. Marinotti conducts research in the areas of law and technology, law and linguistics, property law, and private law theory. He came to Maurer from the Yale Law School Information Society Project and Harvard Law School’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Prof. Marinotti received a J.D. from Harvard Law School (cum laude), an M.Phil. and an M.A. in linguistics from the City University of New York, an M.Sc. in cognitive science from the University of Edinburgh (with distinction), and a B.A. in linguistics from Columbia University (magna cum laude). Prof. Marinotti has recently organized the Workshop on Private Law and Emerging Technology (2021), co-sponsored by the Yale Law School Information Society Project, Harvard’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law, and Yale’s Center for Private Law. He also established the Caselaw Visualization Blog, promoting digitization of legal resources and open access to law and legal data for public analysis and data visualization. His most recent work, Possessing Intangibles, was just published by the Northwestern University Law Review.
Lane McFadden (Fall 2021): Prof. McFadden joined the Law School after more than 16 years of experience as an appellate and environmental attorney, working with the United States Department of Justice. Over his career, he served as lead counsel for the United States in approximately 75 matters and presented more than 40 oral arguments to federal courts of appeal around the country. Prior to joining the federal government, he clerked for Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Loren A. Smith on the United States Court of Federal Claims. Prof. McFadden teaches in the school’s legal research and writing program, has overseen many of the school’s external moot court competition teams, and next year will take over advising the Sherman Minton Moot Court Advocacy Program. He received his BA from University of South Carolina Honors College and his JD from New York University School of Law (cum laude). Prof. McFadden was recognized with an IU Trustee Teaching Award for excellence in classroom instruction in spring 2022.
Nicholas Almendares (Fall 2020): Prof. Almendares joined the Law School from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was program director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy. He previously taught at the Seton Hall University School of Law and Tulane University Law School and clerked for Judge Janis Graham Jack in the Southern District of Texas. His research focuses on accountability and democracy across areas of law, such as class actions, separation of powers, collective responsibility, and campaign financing. His work takes an interdisciplinary approach, often drawing upon economics, social science, and philosophy. He holds a BA from Amherst College, and his JD from New York University School of Law, where he was a Dwight D. Opperman Scholar. He also earned his PhD in politics from New York University, with specialties in political economy and political theory. He is currently teaching not only in the Law School but also in the Law School’s unique collaborative Bachelor of Science in Law and Public Policy Degree program with the top-ranked O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs—believed to be the only program of its kind in the United States. His most recent work will soon appear in the Washington University Law Review.
Asaf Lubin (Fall 2020): Building on Indiana University’s preeminence in the area of cybersecurity, Prof. Lubin is not only a member of our faculty, but also a fellow at IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR). He is additionally an affiliated fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Federmann Cyber Security Research Center. Prof. Lubin’s research centers around the intersection of law and technology, particularly as it relates to the regulation of cybersecurity harms, liabilities, and insurance as well as policy design around governmental and corporate surveillance, data protection, and internet governance. His work draws on his experiences as a former intelligence analyst with the IDF Intelligence Branch as well as his vast practical training and expertise in national security law and foreign policy. Prof. Lubin holds a dual degree in law and international relations (LLB/BA, magna cum laude) from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Master of Laws and a Doctor of the Science of Law degrees from Yale Law School. He additionally attended The Hague Academy of International Law and interned for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In January 2022, he was named the winner of the prestigious 2022 Richard R. Baxter Military Writing Prize and was awarded Indiana University’s Trustee Teaching Award for excellence in classroom instruction in March.
Susan deMaine (Fall 2020): Great law schools have great libraries, and the Jerome Hall Law Library is the among the nation’s very best. Consistently ranked one of the top law libraries in the nation, it requires an exceptional director, which the Law School found in Prof. deMaine. A recognized leader, Prof. DeMaine is active at the university, state, and national levels. In 2016, she received the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Emerging Leader award, and, in 2017, was appointed as a member of AALL’s Body of Knowledge Development Special Committee and chair of AALL’s Digital Access to Legal Information Committee. In 2018, she was selected to serve as co-editor and -manager of book reviews for Law Library Journal. In 2019, she won a national election to serve on the executive board of AALL. Before joining the Law School, Prof. deMaine served as the assistant director of the Ruth Lilly Law Library at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, and before that clerked for the late Hon. David A. Nelson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Excellence in hiring continues. Next year, the Law School hopes to fill the Juanita Kidd Stout Professorship—the first endowed professorship at Indiana University named after a woman of color–with a talented lateral scholar with criminal law and criminal procedure expertise.
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