Faculty
Stephen Arons, Professor
(B.A., Pennsylvania; J.D., Harvard)
120 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.3536
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: arons at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
PROFESSOR ARONS IS ON SABBATICAL FOR SPRING 2008
Stephen Arons is Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He received his B.A. in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Harvard. He has written extensively in professional and popular journals, and was for a time Contributing Editor at the Saturday Review. His fields of expertise include the constitutional dimensions of public education policy, an area in which he has written numerous articles and two books, Compelling Belief: the Culture of American Schooling (Univ. of Mass. Press, 1986), an exploration of individual and cultural freedom in education; and Short Route to Chaos: Conscience, Community, and the Re-Constitution of American Schooling, a critique of standardized education (Univ. of Mass. Press, 1997).
Kathleen Brown-Pérez, Lecturer
(BA, Augustana; MBA, JD, Iowa)
121 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2647
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: brown-perez at comcol.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Kathleen Brown-Pérez is a lecturer for the Department of Legal Studies and a Commonwealth College instructor and enrolled member of
the Brothertown Indian Nation (Wisconsin), holds her B.A. from Augustana College (IL), and M.B.A. and J.D. from the University of Iowa. She practiced corporate law with an emphasis on non-profit and tax-exempt organizations in Phoenix and Boston and is now primarily working with her tribe, the Brothertown Indian Nation, in the federal acknowledgement process as liaison between the tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Her interests include federal Indian policy and law, literary nonfiction in social history, and the issues that arise for cross-border tribes. She is currently co-chair of the Five College Native American Indian Studies Certificate Program and was a UMass Research Literary Fellow (2006-07). Kathleen is also an attorney-editor for Westlaw and has written numerous chapters on state employment discrimination law. She is currently writing a book on Samson Occom, Mohegan minister and founder of the Brothertown Indian Nation.
Alan Gaitenby, Lecturer
(B.S., M.B.A., Ph.D., Massachusetts at Amherst)
106 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.577.1394
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: gaitenby at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Alan Gaitenby is a Lecturer for the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is also the Assistant Director of the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution (CITDR). Gaitenby teaches Law's Mediation, Legal Fictions, Law and Social Activism, and Law and Cyberspace. His research and scholarship focus largely on the intersection of law and information technology, online dispute resolution, and the historical and current social constitutive power of databases and their application.
Thomas Hilbink, Assistant Professor
(A.B., Columbia; J.D., Ph.D., New York University)
110 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2003
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: hilbink at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
PROFESSOR HILBINK IS ON LEAVE FOR 2007/2008
Thomas Hilbink is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research and teaching are concerned with the development of law, politics, and social change in the United States. Specifically, he studies the changing role of lawyers and the legal profession as it interacts with social movements, political institutions, and society at large. Professor Hilbink completed his Ph.D. at the NYU Institute for Law & Society. His dissertation, "Constructing Cause Lawyering: Professionalism, Politics, and Social Change in 1960s America," explored the interactions of lawyers and social movements on issues of civil rights, poverty law, the war in Vietnam, and the environment (among others) at a time when conceptions of what it meant to be a legal professional were in flux. Other scholarship has focused on questions of legal ethics, legal history, and policy history. For a listing of his publications, click here.) Professor Hilbink is also involved in oral history research, having completed projects for the Columbia Oral History Research Office and the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Judith Holmes, Lecturer (B.A., Chicago; J.D., Catholic Univeristy; Ph.D., Massachusetts at Amherst)
108 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2305
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: jholmes at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Judith Holmes is a lecturer for the Department of Legal Studies and an adjunct in the History Department. Professor Holmes' courses in the Department of Legal Studies combine her interests in law and history with her experience as a criminal defense attorney. She has developed courses in 20th Century Political Trials, War Crimes Tribunals, the Death Penalty in America, and, beginning in Fall 2003, Civil Liberties in Wartime. In one way or another, all of her courses require students to investigate the meaning of justice.
Bernie Jones, Assistant Professor
(B.A., Hunter College; J.D., New York University; Ph.D., Virginia)
105 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.577.6164
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: bdjones at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Bernie Jones is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Adjunct
Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst, with research and teaching interests in legal history, women
and the law, family law and legal theory.
Ethan Katsh, Professor
(B.A., New York; J.D., Yale)
107 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.5879
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: katsh at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Professor Katsh is a graduate of the Yale Law School and has authored three books on law and technology, Law in a Digital World (Oxford University Press, 1995) The Electronic Media and the Transformation of Law (Oxford University Press, 1989), and, with Professor Rifkin, Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace (2001). His articles have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Legal Forum, and other law reviews and legal periodicals. His work has been the subject of a Review Essay in Law and Social Inquiry (Summer 2002). Since 1996, Professor Katsh has been involved in a series of activities related to online dispute resolution. He participated in the Virtual Magistrate project and was founder and co-director of the Online Ombuds Office. In 1997, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, he and Professor Rifkin founded the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts.
David Mednicoff, Assistant Professor
(B.A., Princeton; J.D., M.A., Ph.D. Harvard)
438 Thompson Hall
Phone: 413.577.1238
Fax: 413.545.1108
Email: mednic at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
David Mednicoff is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Public Policy, as
well as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern
Studies and the Program in Middle Eastern Studies. He is expert and teaches courses in Middle Eastern politics, international and comparative law, human rights and globalization theory. His teaching honors include a Lilly Teaching Fellowship, the College of Social and Behavioral Science's 2004 Outstanding Teacher Award and a national prize for innovative teaching related to 9/11/01. He is beginning a comparative study of connections between the rule of law and political change in four Arab societies. Other current research topics include Arab human rights activism, the relation of just war theory and the international law of humanitarian intervention, the politics of contemporary Middle Eastern monarchies and post-9/11/01 U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. A former Fulbright scholar to Morocco, he speaks six languages. Professor Mednicoff was a Fulbright Professor in Qatar for 2006-2007.
Ronald Pipkin, Professor and Chair
(B.S., M.S., J.D., Wisconsin)
117 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2305
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: pipkin at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Ronald Pipkin is Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Executive Officer of the Law & Society Association located in Room 217, Draper Hall.
Janet Rifkin, Professor and Dean,
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
(B.A., Sarah Lawrence; J.D., New York University)
205 South College
Phone: 413.545.4173
Home page
Janet Rifkin is Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is also Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She is a graduate Sarah Lawrence College and the New York University School of Law. Her main area of expertise is alternative dispute resolution. From 1992-1996, she served as Ombudsperson of the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts. Previously, she served as Director of the University of Massachusetts Mediation Project. She is the recipient of grants from the Hewlett Foundation, the Fund for Research on Dispute Resolution, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Professor Rifkin has written extensively on the subject of alternative dispute resolution and has conducted many training programs for mediators. She is on the editorial boards of Mediation Quarterly and the Ohio State Journal of Dispute Resolution. She is co-founder of the National Association of Mediation in Education (NAME), an advisor to American Bar Association Committee on Dispute Resolution, and a member of the board of the National Association of Community Justice.
Nina Siulc, Assistant Professor
(B.A., Bard; M.A., New York University (Ph.D. expected in 2008))
109 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.5877
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: nsiulc at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Nina Siulc is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. An anthropologist by training, Nina has worked in a number of applied research and policy settings. Her past and current work has focused on migration, crime, governance, and interstitial spaces such as borderlands and detention centers in the urban United States, the U.S./Mexican border region, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Her projects have explored contemporary racializations of crime and criminalization of racialized immigrants in relation to narratives of national identity and security, as well as the points of intersection and conflict between legal processes, global legal and human rights discourses, and individual experiences. Nina is also trained as an ethnographic/ documentary filmmaker.
Leah Wing, Lecturer
(B.A., Oberlin; M.Ed., Ed.D., Massachusetts at Amherst)
116 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.5882
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: lwing at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Leah is on the faculty in the Legal Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst where she has taught Dispute Resolution since 1993. Her recent research and teaching applies Critical Race theory to mediation and issues of environmental justice. She has been a mediator and trainer since 1985, working with over one hundred educational institutions and non-profits on the intersections between oppression, diversity, and conflict resolution. Leah developed an approach to mediation training and intervention that incorporates a social justice lens and this has served as the basis of a number of her publications and presentations at national and international conferences. Since 2002 Leah has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Conflict Resolution and as a member of the editorial board of Conflict Resolution Quarterly (formerly Mediation Quarterly ).
Leah is the Conflict Resolution Director of the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution located at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst in the Legal Studies Department. She has worked with CITDR for several years exploring issues of power and identity as they manifest in online conflicts and in dispute resolution strategies. She is a member of the research team based at CITDR and the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and a consultant to the National Mediation Board in a National Science Foundation project on online dispute resolution technology and labor mediation.
Diana Yoon, Assistant Professor
(B.A., University of California, Berkeley; Ph.D. New York University (expected in 2008))
121 Gordon Hall
Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.577.0614
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: dyoon at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours (TBA)
Diana Yoon is Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has conducted research in the areas of human rights, political activism and rights discourses around questions of race and gender, and the relationship between U.S. military policies and citizenship practices. Her teaching and research interests are broadly concerned with examining citizenship, immigration, and legal formations of U.S. imperialism through interdisciplinary sociolegal perspectives.
Instructors
Judge Judd Carhart, Instructor
(B.A., Massachusetts at Amherst, J.D., Suffolk)
Email: judgecarhart@yahoo.com
Judd Carhart is an Instructor for the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Jerrold Levinsky, Instructor
(B.A., Rutgers; M.S., Massachusetts at Amherst; J.D., Western New England College)
112A Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.577-6166 (just before class) or 413-739-2145, ext. 107(at MCAD)
Email: jlevinsky at legal.umass.edu
Home page and Office Hours
Jerrold Levinsky is an Instructor for the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Professor Levinsky works for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) and sponsors our MCAD program with Professor Stephen Arons.
Teaching Assistants
Yveline Alexis
114 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545-2649
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: TBA
Office Hours
Yveline Alexis is a Teaching Assistant for Legal Studies 250, in the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Anna Curtis
114 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545-2649
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: TBA
Office Hours
Anna Curtis is a Teaching Assistant for Legal Studies 250, in the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
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Angela Labrador
114 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2649
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: alabra@anthro.umass.edu
Office Hours
Angela Labrador is a Teaching Assistant for Legal Studies 450, in the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
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Erika Marquez
114 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2649
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: marquez@soc.umass.edu
Office Hours
Erika Marquez is a Teaching Assistant for Legal Studies 250, in the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Jeremy Wolf
114 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.2649
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: jnwolf@polsci.umass.edu
Office Hours
Jeremy Wolf is a Teaching Assistant for Legal Studies 397B, in the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Staff
Tami Paluca
(B.S., Massachusetts at Amherst)
103 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.9698
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: tlpaluca at legal.umass.edu
Tami Paluca advises our undergraduate majors and clears them for graduation, as well as doing the bookkeeping for the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Tami received a B.S. in Plant and Soil Science from UMass/Amherst.
Amity Lee-Bradley
(B.A., Massachusetts at Amherst)
102 Gordon Hall
Phone: 413.545.0021
Fax: 413.545.1640
Email: alee at legal.umass.edu
Amity Lee-Bradley is the Office Manager for the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is responsible for the department web pages. Amity received a B.A. in History, Classics and Philosophy from UMass/Amherst.
Retired Faculty
John Bonsignore, Professor
(B.A., Trinity; J.D., Chicago)
Email: jbonsign at legal.umass.edu
John Bonsignore retired from the University in August, 1998. He was an instrumental force in the creation of first a program of Legal Studies in 1973 and then a Department. He also created, with his colleagues, the text that is at the heart of Legal Studies 250, Before the Law.
Peter d'Errico, Professor
(A.B., Bates; LL.B., Yale)
Email: derrico at legal.umass.edu
Peter d'Errico retired from the University in August, 2002. A central figure in the development of the Legal Studies Department here at UMass, his research and teaching were focused on the legal issues of Native Americans and indigenous peoples. He has also been active in litigation of indigenous peoples' issues.
For more information, check his website and NativeWeb (resources for indigenous peoples worldwide).
