Seven new full-time professors with expertise in terrorism, national security, human rights law, international economics, criminal law, elections law and other issues shaping the future of domestic and international public law join Columbia Law School’s faculty this 2008 academic year.

Sarah Cleveland

“The addition of these distinguished scholars to our faculty in areas of our traditional strengths solidify the school’s leadership position for innovative thinking about the most fluid and pressing issues of the moment, which are changing the face of domestic and international law,’’ said David Schizer, dean of Columbia Law School. “It underscores Columbia’s reputation as a school that drives new thinking and influences policy on a global scale."

The seven new hires, a record for the school, continue Schizer’s strategic initiative to increase the faculty by 50 percent. They include:

Nathaniel Persily

• Sarah H. Cleveland, whose human rights expertise was tapped to help draft a transitional labor and employment code for post-Taliban Afghanistan;

• Matthew Waxman, a State Department official who previously advised the Bush Administration on global detainee issues as deputy assistant secretary of defense; and

• Philip Bobbitt, author of the upcoming book Terror and Consent: The Battle for the Twenty-first Century.

Daniel Richman

“We’ve hired an incredibly diverse group whose focus emphasizes the transnational future of public law,” said John Fabian Witt, professor of law and history and co-chair of the faculty appointments committee. “Their sweeping breadth of expertise reflects the many ways of thinking about these key issues: the military perspective, the diplomatic, the human rights side and so forth.”

The new faculty also bring muscle to traditional fields of constitutional, business and criminal law. They include:

• Christina Duffy Burnett, a legal historian whose study of the U.S. Constitution’s evolution in response to past events has relevance to the current debate about how U.S. law might change in response to global terrorism;

• Nathaniel Persily, whose expertise on voting rights and election law has been sought by courts and legislatures in redistricting cases;

• Daniel Richman, a criminal law expert who sat on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Homeland Security Policy Advisory Committee; and

• Ronald J. Mann, an expert on electronic commerce and the global credit card industry.

“These are issues of obvious import today and going forward – how to deal with terrorism, globalization and immigration pressure – and each of the new hires addresses aspects of that in their own way,’’ said Thomas Merrill, the Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law and co-chair of the faculty appointments committee.

Published: Aug. 6, 2007
Last modified: Aug 13, 2007