Regents and Meigs Professorships awarded plus other notable honors

Amann named Regents’ Professor and elected to Council on Foreign Relations

amann photoWoodruff Chair in International Law Diane Marie Amann received one of the University System of Georgia’s highest faculty honors earlier this year – a Regents’ Professorship. This designation is bestowed by the Board of Regents and is reserved for faculty whose scholarship or creative activity is recognized both nationally and internationally as innovative and pace-setting. In recognition of her receipt of this honor, she was invited to deliver the university’s 2021 Charter Lecture.

Amann’s scholarship addresses issues related to international criminal justice, human and child rights, constitutional law and security governance. Her expertise was further recognized through her election this year to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan organization composed of some of the world’s most prominent foreign policy leaders. Her current research will produce the first-ever book, which is under contract with the Oxford University Press, on the roles of women lawyers and other professionals at the 1945–46 war crimes trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Additionally, she has over 80 print publications in English, French and Italian.

Since joining the law faculty in 2011, Amann has enhanced the School of Law’s global reputation through her prior service as associate dean for international programs and strategic initiatives and her current service as faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, and by advancing diversity, equality and inclusion throughout the law school.

Amann holds a courtesy professorship in UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs and, from 2012 to 2021, she served as the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s special adviser on children in and affected by armed conflict.

Ringhand awarded Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship

ringhand photoHosch Professor Lori A. Ringhand was recently awarded the University of Georgia’s highest honor for excellence in teaching – a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship.

Ringhand, who recently served as the interim director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center for 18 months, leads courses in constitutional law, election law, and state and local government law. She is a multiple recipient of the law school’s highest teaching recognition – the Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching – and she has also received the O’Byrne Memorial Award for Significant Contributions Furthering Student-Faculty Relations.

Her impact on her students is evidenced by this quote from a former student included in her Meigs nomination dossier: “Professor Ringhand provides students with an incredible model to aspire to, especially for female-identifying students. Women entering the legal profession are often sent conflicting messages about who they should be. … Professor Ringhand is the role model that I and many students need to validate our hopes about our own future identities … .”

Specializing in constitutional law, election law and the U.S. Supreme Court, Ringhand is the co-author of The Supreme Court Confirmation Process and Constitutional Change and Constitutional Law: A Context and Practices Casebook. She received a Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award that allowed her to explore the different approaches to campaign finance regulation taken by the United States and the United Kingdom at the University of Aberdeen. More recently, she was awarded a grant from the Stanton Foundation to develop and teach an undergraduate course titled Democracy and the Constitution.

Ringhand joined the law school faculty in 2008 and served as its associate dean for academic affairs from 2015 to 2018.

Peters honored with Russell Award

peters photoJonathan Peters, who holds a courtesy faculty appointment at the School of Law teaching media law, has received a 2021 Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, which recognizes outstanding instruction by faculty members early in their academic careers.

An associate professor of journalism in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, Peters is an internationally recognized expert in mass communication law who encourages, guides and challenges his students to think critically and creatively about legal problems and their solutions.

In support of his nomination a colleague wrote:  “Dr. Peters earns students’ attention and trust through a combination of approachability, dedication and mutual respect. While his deep knowledge of the issues is always evident, he is a relaxed teacher who frequently finds ways to connect with students through casual exchanges such as good-natured sports rivalries or self-deprecating humor.”

Peters is a co-author of The Law of Public Communication, a widely adopted textbook, and he has published articles in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, the Harvard Law and Policy Review and the Federal Communications Law Journal.

The Grady College recognized Peters as its 2019 Journalism Teacher of the Year. Outside the university, he recently served as the elected teaching chair of the Law and Policy Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Portions of the Amann, Ringhand and Peters articles were sourced from UGA Marketing and Communications announcements.

 

Burch expands influence in multidistrict litigation

burch photoElizabeth Chamblee Burch, the holder of the Callaway Chair of Law, continues to be one of the most influential voices in the field of class actions and mass torts.

Adding to the more than 80 presentations she has already delivered to academic and professional audiences, this past year she presented at the Academy of Court Appointed Masters’ Annual Meeting, the National Lawyers Convention, the New York University Center on Civil Justice and the 6th Annual Civil Procedure Workshop hosted by the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

She also published “Judicial Adjuncts in Multidistrict Litigation” in the Columbia Law Review and the third edition of her casebook The Law of Class Actions and Other Aggregate Litigation (with the late Richard Nagareda and others).

Burch frequently provides expert media commentary for national and international media outlets. In the last year, she was featured in Reuters and Bloomberg articles as well as quoted in The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, The Economist, Law360, the Insurance Journal and Legal Newsline, among others. Additionally, her book Mass Tort Deals: Backroom Bargaining in Multidistrict Litigation was reviewed by The New York Review of Books.

Dennis’ book gains national recognitions

dennis photoAndrea L. Dennis’ book Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America was recently named a finalist in the nonfiction category in the Library of Virginia’s 23rd Annual Literary Awards and earned a First Amendment Award in the book publishing category from the Hefner Foundation.

In the 2019 book published by The New Press, Dennis and her co-author, University of Richmond Professor Erik Nielson, examine the use of “rap lyrics as criminal evidence to convict and incarcerate young men of color” based on hundreds of court cases from across the country. They also highlight the problems raised by this practice and propose solutions to achieve meaningful change.

Dennis currently serves as the law school’s associate dean for faculty development and holds its Martin Chair of Law. Leading courses in criminal law, evidence and family law, her scholarship explores criminal defense lawyering, race and criminal justice, and the cradle-to-prison pipeline.

Dennis was selected as the recipient of the O’Byrne Memorial Award for Significant Contributions Furthering Student-Faculty Relations and as a graduation faculty marshal by the school’s 2021 graduates.

Simon’s article receives AALS honor

simon photoAssistant Professor Lindsey Simon’s article “Bankruptcy Grifters” was selected by the Association of American Law Schools as an honorable mention in its 2021 Scholarly Papers Competition. The article, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Yale Law Journal, was one of more than 60 submitted for consideration.

In “Bankruptcy Grifters,” Simon calls attention to the growing prevalence of unintended beneficiaries in mass tort related bankruptcies. By examining “the progression of non-debtor relief from asbestos and product liability bankruptcies to cases arising out of the opioid epidemic and sex abuse scandals,” her article explains how courts have allowed “piecemeal expansion to fundamentally change the scope of bankruptcy protections.” She concludes her article by proposing “specific procedural and substantive safeguards that would deter bankruptcy grifter opportunism and increase transparency, thereby protecting victims as well as the bankruptcy process.”

Simon joined the law school’s faculty in 2018 teaching in the areas of bankruptcy and secured transactions. She has been quoted in nationally prominent media outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and on National Public Radio.