Full Time Faculty

Adam Abelkop teaches the 1L sequence in legal research, writing, and analysis as well as torts, remedies, and environmental justice. From 2016 to 2019, he served as a teaching fellow supervising Stanford Law School's Environmental Law and Policy LLM program. His research focuses on institutional analysis within the realm of public health and environmental protection. Adam has written on chemical risk regulation, international and domestic climate change policy, and the role of tort law in...

Lara Bazelon is a professor of law and the director of the Criminal Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinical Programs at the University of San Francisco School of Law. From 2012-2015, she was a visiting associate clinical professor at Loyola Law School and the director of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent. Professor Bazelon was a trial attorney in the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles for seven years. Prior to that, she was a law clerk for the Honorable Harry...

Luke Boso is an assistant professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law I, Constitutional Law II, Criminal Law, Education Law, Family Law, and Remedies. He has also served as a part-time visiting professor at the UC Hastings College of Law since 2019, where he teaches Constitutional Law II. Previously, Boso taught courses dealing with law and sexuality for two years as a law teaching fellow with the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law....

Jonathan previously served at Golden Gate University School of Law as the Director of Bar Exam Services and the Director of Graduate Law Programs. He was a former grader for a national bar company and has tutored students and attorneys for over 16 years to pass the California bar exam. He has worked with associates and partners from top 25 law firms and Fortune 500 companies to successfully pass the bar exam. Jonathan worked as a staff aide to Congressman Tom Lantos (SF/San Mateo) and served in...

Professor Joshua Paul Davis was the School of Law's associate dean for academic affairs from 2013-2017, during which he oversaw the law school's academic programs and was responsible for curricular and program developments and implementation. Davis focuses his scholarly research on complex litigation, ethics, and the interplay between the two. As director of the Center for Law and Ethics, he leads panels, organizes symposia, and undertakes research exploring these topics. Davis is active in law...

Professor Connie de la Vega writes extensively on international human rights law and participates in United Nations human rights meetings. She has submitted amicus briefs detailing international law standards to U.S. courts for juvenile death penalty and affirmative action cases, including Roper v. Simmons and Graham and Sullivan v. Florida, and has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. De la Vega is the co–author of The American Legal System for Foreign Lawyers (Wolters Kluwer, 2011) and...

Professor Reza Dibadj’s research involves both corporate and securities law as well as administrative law and regulation. His writing focuses on two themes. The first involves the application of new tools, such as network theory, to legal analysis. The second is an exploration of different institutional choices the law has made. For instance, corporate and securities law often try to achieve similar goals, but through very different means; similarly for antitrust and regulation. For their part...

Jessica Fajfar is the Director of the Internet & IP Justice Clinic and Assistant Professor, where she supervises the USPTO Trademark Program. She has worked on many trademark prosecution matters with students, including filing initial trademark applications, responding to office actions, and defending and enforcing TTAB oppositions and cancellations. She also has assisted students with settling other intellectual property matters, including trademark, copyright, and domain-name disputes,...

Amy Flynn joined USF Law in 2007. From 2004 to 2007, Flynn served as the Assistant Public Defender in Contra Costa County. She is co-author of California Criminal Law: Cases and Problems, 4th Ed. As Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Flynn oversees the law school’s academic programs and is responsible for curricular program development and implementation, including the Academic and Bar Exam Success Program. As a member of the faculty, she has taught Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and...

Dean and Professor of Law Susan Freiwald became the 19th Dean of the University of San Francisco School of Law on July 1, 2019, after serving one-year terms as the school's interim dean and associate dean for academic affairs. Since joining the law school’s administration after 20 years as a member of the USF faculty, Dean Freiwald has spearheaded a revamp of the curriculum, redesigned the first-year orientation and tutorial programs, and launched the Academic and Bar Exam Success Program. In...

USF Law Professor, Dean’s Circle Scholar, and Co-Director of USF's Work Law and Justice Program, Tristin Green specializes in laws affecting inequality, especially employment discrimination law. She brings to her teaching and her scholarship a background in journalism and sociology, and an interest in human relations and in the ways in which laws and contexts shape those relations. Her research and teaching interests include feminist legal theory, employment discrimination, race, gender and...

Professor April Ham is a research librarian at USF's Dorraine Zief Law Library, where she provides research assistance to students and faculty. She also teaches Taxation Research, trains first-year students in online legal research, and manages the library's research assistant program, which provides research support to the law faculty. She practiced commercial litigation in San Francisco for four years prior to starting library school, and is a member of the California bar and the American...

Throughout his career, Professor Bill Ong Hing pursued social justice through a combination of community work, litigation, and scholarship. He is the author of numerous academic and practice-oriented publications on immigration policy and race relations, including American Presidents, Deportation and Human Rights Violations (Cambridge Univ. Press 2019); Ethical Borders—NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration (Temple University Press, 2010), Deporting Our Souls–Morality, Values, and...

Professor of Legal Writing Edith Ho received her bachelor of arts from Smith College and her juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, she worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on health care and social service matters in federal court and administrative hearings. After public service, she was in private practice specializing in insurance coverage and civil litigation with several San Francisco law firms. Ho teaches and directs the Legal Research,...

Heidi Ho is an assistant professor and the co-director of the Academic Support Program. She previously served as the Asian Battered Women’s project attorney and managing attorney of the Asian Outreach Unit at Great Boston Legal Services. As a student at the University of San Francisco School of Law, she participated in the Academic Support Program and was the Public Interest Scholar. She is admitted in the Bar in California, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. She graduated from UC Irvine having majored...

Professor Peter Jan Honigsberg’s current research focuses on the rule of law and human rights violations that occurred in the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and on the study of terrorism and other post–9/11 issues. Honigsberg is the founder and director of Witness to Guantanamo, which began in fall 2008. He has filmed over 158 full–length and in–depth interviews in twenty countries of former detainees and others who have worked in or are associated with the prison in Guantánamo,...

Megan Hutchinson is a legal research, writing, and analysis assistant professor at USF. As an attorney she represents employers in all aspects of employment litigation, with a focus on employment discrimination claims. In her practice, she also advises employers with respect to compliance issues arising under local, California, and federal labor and employment laws, including handbook policies, terminations, reductions in force, meal and rest periods, reimbursement of business expenses, leaves...

Professor Tim Iglesias, an expert in housing and property law, has served on the USF law faculty since 2001. He co–edited The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development Law (American Bar Association, 2011). He has published several articles on affordable housing and fair housing law, including “Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and the Struggle for Affordability” (Wake Forest Law Review, 2007), “Beyond Two–Persons–Per–Bedroom: Revitalizing Application of the Federal Fair Housing Act to Private...

Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship Alice Kaswan is an expert on climate change and on environmental justice. She has written and spoken widely about climate federalism, addressing the appropriate roles of federal, state, and local governments in mitigating and adapting to climate change. Her work also explores the intersection between environmental justice and climate change policy, with special emphasis on the environmental justice implications of climate adaptation...

Assistant Professor Eugene Kim received his undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University and his law degree from the University of San Francisco. He previously worked as a litigation associate in the San Francisco office of Nixon Peabody LLP and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Donna M. Ryu of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. In January 2019, he became co-director of USF’s Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellence, where he leads USF's efforts to build...

Professor Daniel Lathrope's teaching and research focus is taxation. He is the co–author of several casebooks on individual, corporate, and partnership taxation, including Fundamentals of Federal Income Taxation, Fundamentals of Corporate Taxation, and Fundamentals of Partnership Taxation. He is the author of The Alternative Minimum Tax—Compliance and Planning with Analysis, a treatise on the alternative minimum tax, and a book on comparative income taxation titled Global Issues in Income...

Richard A. Leo, PhD, JD, is the Hamill Family Professor of Law and Psychology at the University San Francisco School of Law, and a Fellow in the Institute for Legal Research at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He was previously a tenured professor of psychology and criminology at U.C. Irvine for a decade (1997-2006), and a professor of sociology and adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado, Boulder (1994-1997). Dr. Leo is one of the leading experts in the...

Professor Matthew Liebman joined the USF faculty in 2020 as the endowed Justice for Animals chair and as an associate professor of law. Before coming to USF, Professor Liebman was the director of litigation for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, where he litigated animal protection cases, including groundbreaking cases to defend the First Amendment rights of activists and to establish fundamental legal rights for nonhuman animals, for 12 years. Professor Liebman is a frequent media commentator on...

Professor Rhonda V. Magee is a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for lawyers, law students, and for minimizing social-identity-based bias. A full-time faculty member at University of San Francisco since 1998, and a full professor since 2004, she has been named Dean’s Circle Research Scholar, served as co-director of the University’s Center for Teaching Excellence, and co-facilitator of the Ignatian Faculty Forum faculty development program. She teaches Torts; Race, Law...

Professor Mawhinney has been a librarian at USF since 2010 and was named interim director of the Zief Law Library in 2021. In addition to overseeing all aspects of library operations, she provides research assistance to students and faculty, teaches legal research to first-year students, serves as a research advisor to the domestic and international student externship programs, and manages the library's research assistant program, which provides research support to the law faculty. Professor...

Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Academic and Bar Exam Success (ABES) program Katie Moran is a proud USF School of Law alumna, graduating summa cum laude in 2016. An advocate and deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County for nearly four years, she tried 29 jury trials to verdict. In her final year at that office, Moran worked on the felony domestic violence team, where she handled a caseload of 30 cases from filing to resolution. While at USF, Moran externed for the Honorable...

Professor Julie A. Nice joined the USF faculty in 2009 as the Herbst Foundation Professor of Law. She has received 12 awards for her law teaching, including the 2012 Distinguished Professor Award at USF. Nice focuses her scholarly work on constitutional law, poverty law, and sexuality law. She is the lead author of Poverty Law: Theory and Practice, and has written numerous articles. Nice previously served as the Delaney Professor of Law at the University of Denver, where she received numerous...

Professor Maria Linda Ontiveros is the Co-Director of USF's Work Law and Justice Program and focuses her scholarly work on employment law with an emphasis on immigrant workers' rights. She publishes and presents regularly on a variety of related topics, including the history of immigrant workers, workplace harassment of women of color, organized labor, immigrants and the Thirteenth Amendment, and access to education for children of undocumented workers. Ontiveros is co–author of Employment...

Nicole Phillips is a legal research, writing, and analysis assistant professor at USF. As an attorney she represents employers in all aspects of employment litigation, with a focus on employment discrimination claims. In her practice, she also represents local Bay Area school districts in all aspects of litigation and pre-litigation including issues involving students, staff, and faculty. She received her BA from UCSD in 20th Century History and obtained her JD from USF School of Law.

Professor Bruce M. Price primarily focuses his research on empirical studies involving consumer bankruptcy issues. During his years of practice, Professor Price concentrated on bankruptcy, contracts, and corporate law. He joined the faculty at Denver University in 2004, where he received the Mentorship Award and was nominated for Most Outstanding Faculty Member and Most Engaging Professor in 2006. A graduate of Haverford College, Price earned his juris doctor with honors from George Washington...

Before joining the USF faculty, Marci spent half of her twenty-year legal career supporting the judiciary as a research attorney for two different trial courts, and half of her career working in private practice with large and small firms in the Bay Area. As a practitioner, Marci's work focused on complex civil litigation, primarily in the areas of securities, antitrust, business, banking, and insurance law, and she routinely drafted and argued critical motions in state and federal courts...

Professor Joshua D. Rosenberg has two main areas of expertise: (1) tax law, and (2) psychology of lawyers and laws. Professor Rosenberg is the co–author of leading treatises in federal income tax and in corporate tax, as well as co-author of the nation’s leading casebooks in corporate tax, partnership tax, and taxation of business enterprises. His many scholarly tax articles have been published in journals including the California Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and...

Jacqueline Brown Scott is an immigration attorney with experience solving a wide array of immigration issues pertaining to asylum, deportation defense, and family-based immigration. Jacqueline began her career in immigration law at the San Francisco Immigration Court as an attorney advisor through the Department of Justice Honors Program. There, she wrote hundreds of orders and written decisions for the Immigration Judges. When working at her firm, Law Office of Jacqueline Brown Scott, she...

Professor John Shafer is a reference and instruction librarian at the Dorraine Zief Law Library at the USF School of Law. After graduating from the USF School of Law in 1986 he worked for several years as a Westlaw academic representative, training students, librarians, and professors throughout the western United States. Shafer received a master's in library and information science from UC Berkeley in 1993 and began working at USF that same year. Since then he has trained hundreds of students...

Professor Sidwell joined the faculty of the University of San Francisco School of Law as the Director of Externship Programs and an Assistant Professor in 2019. Professor Sidwell oversees the judicial, civil, externship, tax, and summer international externship programs. As Director of the Externship Programs, Professor Sidwell teaches the classroom component, works with adjunct faculty, and oversees students, placements, and supervising attorneys. Prior to coming to USF, Professor Sidwell...

Professor Michelle Travis is a Dean’s Circle Scholar and Co-Director of USF's Work Law and Justice Program. She specializes in employment law with a focus on disability discrimination, sex discrimination, and work/family balance. Her interdisciplinary scholarship uses social cognition and sociology research to reveal how antidiscrimination law could be used to eliminate structural, organizational, and cognitive biases in the workplace. She regularly speaks on these topics around the country,...

Monalisa Vu teaches Appellate Advocacy, Domestic Violence Law and Litigation, Legal Research, Writing, and Analysis, and American Legal Writing to international LLM students. As a practicing attorney, Monalisa represented survivors of domestic violence in areas of family and immigration law.  She has worked in both the public interest and private sector spheres. 

Assistant Professor Carol Wilson is co–director of the Academic Support Program (ASP) and has contributed to USF's Center for Law and Global Justice programs. As ASP co–director, she helps students prepare for the study of law and enhance academic performance throughout law school. With Professor Sharon Meadows, Wilson revised the Martindale–Hubbell Law Digest: California (Martindale–Hubbell, 2007).