John B. Meixner Jr. joined the School of Law as an assistant professor leading the classes Evidence and Criminal Law.

His research focuses on criminal law (especially sentencing), evidence and the intersection of law and neuroscience. Meixner’s scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the Northwestern University Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the DePaul Law Review, the Albany Law Review, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology and the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.

Before entering academia, Meixner served as an assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan for almost six years, working in the major crimes unit and the appellate division. He was a general litigation associate in Schiff Hardin’s Ann Arbor office. He also served as a judicial clerk for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Chief Judge Gerald E. Rosen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Meixner’s bachelor’s degree is from the University of Michigan and his J.D. and Ph.D. are from Northwestern University, where he was editor-in-chief of the Northwestern University Law Review and inducted into the Order of the Coif.

Scott Lowry (J.D.’07) became a clinical assistant professor in early 2022. He now leads the school’s Business Law and Ethics Program and its Corporate Counsel Externship, due to the retirement of Clinical Professor & Business Law and Ethics Program Director Carol Morgan (J.D.’79).

Lowry joined the law faculty with 15 years of experience as a transactional attorney in the areas of corporate, tax and real estate law. Previously, he was a partner at the law firm Fortson, Bentley & Griffin in Athens, where he represented clients on a wide variety of corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, franchising, exempt securities offerings and commercial contract review. He also worked in the Atlanta office of Morris, Manning & Martin.

Active in the Athens start-up community, Lowry has led classes on legal issues on behalf of the UGA Small Business Development Center and presented on corporate law matters in conjunction with the university’s Innovation Gateway and the FABricate Entrepreneurial Initiative.

Lowry earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from UGA, where he served on the Georgia Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

Nancy E. Rafuse (J.D.’91) joined the law school faculty as a counselor in residence during the 2021-22 academic year. She teaches the courses Employment Discrimination, and Wage and Hour Law and Litigation.

Rafuse – currently the managing partner of the Atlanta office of Sanford Heisler Sharp and the firmwide head of litigation – practiced employment law for approximately 30 years, most recently as an equity partner at Seyfarth Shaw in Atlanta where her national labor and employment practice included Fortune 100 clients and large private employers. She advised and counseled on employment law matters, including internal investigations and C-suite employment issues.

Previously she worked at the law firm Polsinelli from 2014 to 2019. She opened the firm’s Atlanta office in 2014 and managed it for three years. After law school, Rafuse worked for 12 years at Paul Hastings, where she became a partner and served as vice chair of the firm’s employment practice before serving as managing partner of Ashe Rafuse & Hill from 2003 to 2014.

She earned both her bachelor’s and law degrees from UGA, where she was notes editor of the Georgia Law Review, a judicial intern for U.S. District Court Judge B. Avant Edenfield (J.D.’58) and inducted into the Order of the Coif.

Lynne Moore Nelson was named the executive director of the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education of Georgia after many years of legal experience in both the public and private sectors.

ICJE, which has benefited from a collaborative relationship with the School of Law since the mid-1970s, is responsible for Georgia’s statewide educational system for judges and court staff.

Nelson took over this leadership role after Douglas Ashworth (J.D.’87) left the institute at the end of 2021. He had been with ICJE since 2017.