Beginning in January 2024, Zohra Ahmed joins BU Law from the University of Georgia School of Law. Ahmed writes and teaches about the US carceral state and US militarism. She is particularly interested in the interactions between law and political economy and law and social movements in these two domains.

She started her legal career as public defender at the Legal Aid Society in New York City. While working in criminal court, she also founded a community court watching project. Ahmed entered the academy as a clinical teaching fellow at Cornell Law School, in its International Human Rights Clinic. Ahmed also oversaw United Nations advocacy on behalf of the only human rights organization in the Golan. She joined the faculty at University of Georgia School of Law in 2021, where she taught Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law and a seminar titled Crime and Punishment. Ahmed speaks French and Urdu and has studied Mandarin.

Steven Dean joins the BU Law faculty from Brooklyn Law School. Previously, Dean was a visiting professor at BU Law in 2022. His work focuses on the causes and consequences of inequality, both domestically and globally, with a particular focus on tax policy and an emphasis on anti-Black racism. 

In his forthcoming book, Global Jim Crow: Taxation and Racial Capitalism (Oxford University Press 2023), Dean explains how racial bias helped create and continues to sustain a global tax system that favors wealthy states. He has coauthored three books with other Brooklyn Law professors: For-Profit Philanthropy (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Social Enterprise Law: Trust, Public Benefit, and Capital Markets (Oxford University Press 2017) with Dana Brakman Reiser, and Federal Taxation of Corporations and Corporate Transactions (Aspen Publishers 2018) with Brad Borden. He has testified before the US House Ways and Means Committee and been a consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Dean serves on the board of the National Tax Association and serves the American Bar Association as a member of the diversity committee of its Tax Section and a member of the editorial board for its journal, The Tax Lawyer. He serves the New York State Bar Association as a member of the executive committee of its Tax Section and as a member of its professional ethics committee.

Dean graduated from Yale Law School and earned his undergraduate degree in Political Economy at Williams College. He previously practiced tax law at Debevoise & Plimpton and Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Before law school, Dean worked with KPMG’s transfer pricing group.

Lisa Freudenheim joins BU Law as an associate professor and director of the Academic Enrichment Program. She most recently served as dean and associate dean at New England Law | Boston. Previously, Freudenheim was a professor and director of Academic Excellence at New England Law.

Freudenheim supports student success through programming and individual meetings with students at all class levels, from orientation through bar passage. She has devoted her career in legal education to teaching and counseling students, with a focus on developing the fundamental skills to promote success and wellbeing in law school and in the legal profession. 

Freudenheim is a former member of the Academic Support Program faculty at Suffolk University Law School and was a visiting professor at Boston College Law School and a teaching fellow at Brandeis University. She focuses her teaching on courses in academic support throughout the curriculum, as well as legal writing, legal practice skills, client counseling, and bar preparation. Freudenheim has also taught courses in Contracts, Employment Law, and Evidence. She earned a BA from Tufts University and a JD from New York University Law School. After graduation, Freudenheim practiced as an employment law attorney in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. For the past twenty years, she has served as a consultant and advisor to major law firms and corporations nationwide in designing and presenting professional development training focusing on legal writing and analysis.

Benjamin Pyle teaches and writes in employment law, criminal law, and empirical legal studies, with a focus on how the law influences employment prospects and post-conviction opportunities for people with criminal records.

Pyle has published work in the Notre Dame Law Review and the International Review of Law and Economics as well as other journals. His research has won several prizes, including the University of Chicago’s Donald M. Ephraim Prize in Law and Economics and the John E. Parker Memorial Prize in Labor Economics and Human Resources. Pyle’s scholarly work has been cited by various judicial opinions, including those of the Ohio Supreme Court. 

Pyle has been active in providing research for the Criminal Justice Administrative Record System at the University of Michigan. He has also worked with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Employment Law Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Washtenaw County, Michigan, Prosecutor’s office. Pyle earned his JD from the University of Michigan, where he also earned a master’s degree and PhD in economics. He earned a bachelor’s in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and Mathematics from Claremont McKenna College.

Jed Handelsman Shugerman joins BU Law from Fordham Law School. Previously, Shugerman was a visiting professor at BU Law for the 2022–23 academic year. 

He received his BA, JD, and PhD in history from Yale. His book, The People’s Courts (Harvard University Press 2012), traces the rise of judicial elections, judicial review, and the influence of money and parties in American courts. He is coauthor of amicus briefs on the history of presidential power, the Emoluments Clauses, the Appointments Clause, the First Amendment rights of elected judges, and the due process problems of elected judges in death penalty cases.

He is currently working on two books on the history of executive power and prosecution in America. The first is tentatively titled A Faithful President: The Founders v. the Unitary Executive, questioning the textual and historical evidence for the theory of unchecked and unbalanced presidential power. 

Shugerman’s second book project is The Rise of the Prosecutor Politicians: Race, War, and Mass Incarceration, focusing on California Governor Earl Warren, his presidential running mate Thomas Dewey, the Kennedys, the growth of prosecutorial power, and its emergence as a steppingstone to electoral power for ambitious politicians in the mid-twentieth century. He writes about law, history, politics, and sometimes sports on Shugerblog.com.

Maya Steinitz joins BU Law from her dual-appointment as an associate-in-law and lecturer at Columbia Law School. Steinitz also served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Tel Aviv University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Steinitz teaches civil procedure, international arbitration, international business transactions, and corporations. Her research focuses on the intersection of civil litigation and corporate law, public and business international law, transnational dispute resolution, and the global legal profession. She is one of the nation’s leading experts on litigation finance.

Prior to joining academia, Steinitz served as a litigator at Latham & Watkins LLP and Flemming, Zulack, & Williamson LLP. She also clerked for the Honorable Esther Hayut, currently the chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court.

Steinitz remains active in international dispute resolution by serving as an arbitrator, expert, and counsel in international and domestic arbitrations. She has served as a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration and on the inaugural bench of the Israeli-Palestinian ICC Jerusalem Arbitration Center. 

Her articles have been published in the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, Harvard Journal of International Law, Stanford Law Review, and others. Steinitz has recently published a book about cross-border mass tort litigation titled The Case for an International Court of Civil Justice (Cambridge University Press 2019) and her next monograph, Litigation Finance, Law Firm Ownership & The Future of the Legal Profession, will be published by Cambridge University Press.

Steinitz has been interviewed and cited by scores of leading news outlets globally, including CBS 60 Minutes, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic.

Christopher Conley has been working at BU Law for over two years with the BU/MIT Technology Law Clinic. Prior to joining BU, Conley spent over a decade as a technology policy attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, where he engaged in legislative advocacy, litigation, and public education on issues including privacy, surveillance, and free expression and their intersection with emerging technology. Conley has also been engaged as a consultant by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and Amnesty International USA. Before pursuing a legal career, he was a software developer and electrical engineer with employers ranging from Intel to New York City Center, an off-Broadway theater. Conley holds a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology and after graduating, he was a student fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society. Conley also earned an SM in Computer Science from MIT and a BSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Shira Diner joins BU Law from Todd & Weld LLP, where she was the director of associate development and recruitment. She previously was a public defender with the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) for 17 years, most recently as the supervising attorney in the Criminal Defense Training Unit where she helped coordinate and provide training for CPCS staff attorneys and bar advocates. 

Diner has been a CPCS staff attorney in the Barnstable and then the Boston Superior Court Offices of CPCS. She also completed a clerkship with the Massachusetts Superior Court. In 2016 Diner was appointed by Governor Charlie Baker to the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission. 

Diner is a member of the Massachusetts Legislature’s Bail Reform Special Commission. She serves on the board of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and is the organization’s current president. She has taught at Suffolk University Law School as an adjunct clinical professor of law. Diner is a graduate of the National Criminal Defense College and Northeastern University School of Law.

Ari Lipsitz joins BU Law after five years of practicing intellectual property law, first at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and then at Cooley LLP. His intellectual property practice focuses on providing reasoned, empathetic counseling for early-stage companies, creatives, and entrepreneurs. In that time, Lipsitz counseled hundreds of clients at every stage of the life cycle. As a litigator, he has represented clients in proceedings before the United States Patent & Trademark Office and federal court, including several high-profile matters before the Southern District of New York, Northern District of California, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the US Supreme Court. Lipsitz obtained a JD from NYU School of Law in 2018, as well as a BFA in Recorded Music from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Madeline Meth joins BU Law from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was deputy director of the Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic. At Georgetown University, she supervised students working on public-interest cases in federal and state courts of appeals and the Supreme Court. 

Meth has litigated dozens of public-interest cases before appellate courts around the country on behalf of underdog clients. Her cases have involved a range of issue areas including consumer law, labor and employment law, student civil rights, prisoner rights, and immigration law. While at Georgetown, Maddie also volunteered with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless where she provided legal assistance to clients experiencing homelessness or the threat of homelessness.

Before returning to Georgetown Law to teach, Maddie worked at AARP’s Legal Counsel for the Elderly, providing legal services to low-income seniors living in the District of Columbia. She also clerked for the Honorable George J. Hazel on the US District Court for the District of Maryland and for the Honorable Jane B. Stranch on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Angelo Petrigh joins BU Law after serving as the training director in the Bronx Defenders’ Criminal Defense Practice for twelve years. Petrigh was responsible for the training and development of the 150 staff members in his practice, from initial training to handling complex felonies. He also teaches at national trial skills programs, criminal defense conferences, and instructs other public defense offices around the country, particularly those seeking to transition to an interdisciplinary, holistic model. Petrigh received his BA from Cornell University and JD from NYU School of Law, where he was a Dean’s Scholar and a Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation Scholar.

Petrigh’s scholarship examines the judiciary’s role in criminal legal rights and the structural incentives placed on judges. Petrigh’s recent article in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology discusses the judiciary’s resistance to New York’s 2020 criminal law reforms.

Jarrod Reich joins BU Law from the University of Miami School of Law, where he taught first-year and upper-level writing courses and evidence as professor of legal writing. Reich focuses his scholarship on lawyer and law student well-being.

Previously, Reich served on the faculties of Georgetown University Law Center and Florida State University College of Law, as well as the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law as an adjunct professor. Throughout his teaching career, Reich has served as a coach of moot court and mock trial teams and as the faculty advisor to several student organizations, and while at Florida State, he won the Open Door Teaching Award for his mentorship and advising work. 

Reich’s scholarship has appeared in the Villanova Law Review and Harvard Law School’s The Practice. He is a member of the Institute for Well-Being in Law’s advisory board of directors and the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Lawyer Well-Being. In 2020, he served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ award-winning Section on Balance and Well-Being in Legal Education. He coauthored Thinking Like a Writer: A Lawyer’s Guide to Effective Writing and Editing (Practising Law Institute 2021) with Stephen Armstrong and Timothy Terrell, the premier legal writing textbook for practitioners.

Prior to teaching full-time, Reich was counsel at the firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, where he focused his practice on complex litigation and was on the team representing the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the historic case for marriage equality. Reich also clerked for the Honorable William J. Haynes, Jr. (ret.) of the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, and graduated Order of the Coif from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he was managing editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review.

Tiffani Darden is visiting from Michigan State University College of Law. Darden teaches and writes in the area of civil procedure, juvenile law, and equal protection. Her scholarship explores the impact of US Supreme Court standards and requirements for juvenile sentencing as well as the intersection between public education services and the juvenile justice system. 

Darden’s latest project builds on work arguing for the retroactive application of Miller v. Alabama and analyzing the path toward a political voice for marginalized youth in our time of disruption.

Darden won the prestigious Lilly Teaching Fellowship at Michigan State University, and reformed how civil procedure is taught to first-year law students. Darden brings her teaching expertise to the broader legal academic community through leadership in the New Law Teachers Section of the American Association of Law Schools.

Darden obtained her law degree from Tulane School of Law and LLM from Columbia School of Law as a Harlan Fisk Scholar. Darden clerked for the Honorable Carl E. Stewart on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She taught law as a visiting professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and practiced at Fulbright & Jaworski LLP (now Norton Rose Fulbright), in Dallas, Texas.

Vinay Harpalani is visiting from the University of New Mexico School of Law, where he is the Don L. & Mabel F. Dickason Endowed Chair in Law and Professor of Law. Harpalani teaches courses in constitutional law, civil procedure, employment discrimination, and race and law. His scholarship examines the nuances of racial identity, diversity, and equity from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating law with social sciences and ethnic studies.

Harpalani is a nationally recognized expert on affirmative action in university admissions. He received the 2017 Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Award from the Association of American Law Schools Section on Minority Groups and the 2016 Society of American Law Teachings Junior Teaching Faculty Award. Harpalani coauthored US Supreme Court amicus briefs in Fisher v. University of Texas II (2016) and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/University of North Carolina (2023). 

Several of Harpalani’s law review articles have been cited in US Supreme Court amicus briefs, and he has been quoted in national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time magazine. Additionally, he has written about topics such as skin color discrimination law, Asian American and South Asian American racialization, and racial identity development among Black children. Harpalani received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware, his master’s degrees and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and his JD from New York University School of Law. He grew up in New Castle County, Delaware, where his experiences with school desegregation led to his interest in race and law.

Charles C. Jalloh is visiting from Florida International University where he is Distinguished University Professor. Jalloh is a member of the UN International Law Commission, founding editor of the African Journal of Legal Studies and the African Journal of International Criminal Justice and a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law.

He has published widely on issues of international law in journals such as American Journal of International Law, International Criminal Law Review, Journal of International Criminal Justice, and Michigan Journal of International Law.

Jalloh has published many books, including: The Sierra Leone Special Court and Its Legacy: The Impact for Africa and International Criminal Law (Cambridge 2015), Shielding Humanity: Essays in International Law in Honour of Judge Abdul G. Koroma (Brill 2015) with coauthor Femi Elias, and The African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights in Context: Development and Challenges (Cambridge 2019) coauthored with Kamari Clarke and Vincent Nmehielle.

He has advised governments and international organizations on issues of domestic and international law and appeared in proceedings before international tribunals. Jalloh’s practice experience includes as counsel in the Canadian Department of Justice, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, an associate legal officer in the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda working on high profile cases involving the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a legal adviser in the Special Court for Sierra Leone where he was duty counsel and head of the public defender’s office in The Hague trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and as a visiting professional in the International Criminal Court (ICC). For several years, he was member of the advisory panel to the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the advisory board of the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Association.

He is founder of the African Court Research Initiative and the Center for International Law and Policy in Africa, both funded by the Open Society Foundations. Jalloh is member and chair of the Panel of Experts on the Election of the Prosecutor established by the ICC Assembly of States Parties, an Independent Legal Expert for the Directorate of Legal Affairs of the African Union Commission, the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide, the Council of Advisers on the Application of the Rome Statute to Cyberwarfare and on the Advisory Group for the ASIL Taskforce on Policy Options for US Engagement with the ICC.

Jalloh’s education includes a BA from the University of Guelph, a JD and BCL degrees from McGill University, a Barrister-at-Law from the Law Society of Upper Canada and a master’s in International Human Rights Law, with distinction, from Oxford University, where he was a Chevening Scholar. He holds a PhD specializing in International Law from the University of Amsterdam.

Tyson-Lord Gray is affiliated with the Academic Enrichment Program and teaches environmental law. His scholarship addresses social justice concerns within the areas of environmental law, food law, and cannabis law. Gray has previously been a visiting assistant professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law and taught at William H. Bowen School of Law, where he served as the inaugural racial justice fellow at the Center for Racial Justice and Criminal Justice Reform. 

Prior to legal teaching, Gray taught professional responsibility at NYU Stern School of Business, and environmental governance at NYU School of Arts and Sciences. He has also taught at Pace University and was a research associate at the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty. 

A member of the New York State Bar, Gray spent two years in private practice at Richman Law & Policy, a social justice law firm specializing in consumer class action, consumer watchdog actions, and civil rights litigation. He has also published several non-legal articles including “Staring at the Sun: Tragedy, Trauma, and Ecological Harmony,” Dialog 59, and “Beauty or Bane: Advancing an Aesthetic Appreciation of Wind Turbine Farms,” Contemporary Aesthetics.

Gray earned his JD from Elisabeth Haub School of Law and earned both his MA and PhD from Vanderbilt University. He also holds a Master of Divinity from Morehouse School of Religion and a Master of Sacred Theology from Boston University School of Theology.