Faculty Accomplishments

Lynda Black Professor Lynda Black's article, "Preserving Procreative Potential with a SmART Prenuptial Agreement," was accepted for publication in 2021 in the FIU Law Review.

Black was also elected by the Faculty Athletics Representatives (FAR) of the American Athletic Conference (AAC) to represent the AAC in 1A FAR (a national organization comprising FARs from each of the athletic conferences competing in Division I college athletics in the Football Bowl Subdivision).

She was also appointed to the University of Memphis Athletics for Diversity and Equality (UMADE) action group.

Additionally, Black was recently recognized by the National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame as one of 12 faculty athletics representatives honored as part of the 2020 NFF Faculty Salutes presented by Fidelity Investments.

Demetria Frank Professor Demetria Frank presented at Washington & Lee's Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice 2020 Symposium, "Race and the Pandemic," in the fall, with a subsequent article published in its spring symposium issue.

Frank also recently took part in a virtual criminal justice reform symposium co-hosted by Just City and the National Civil Rights Museum.

Frank was appointed to the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Ronnie Gipson Professor Ronnie Gipson published an article entitled, "The 737 Max is ready to fly again, but plane certification still needs to be fixed – and here's how," in The Conversation.

Gipson's work was also referenced in the Congressional Report on the 737 Max certification investigation. The report cited his article, "The FAA's Aircraft Design Approval Process must be Overhauled," from the Empire Bar Review.

His article, "The Rise of Drones and the Erosion of Privacy and Trespass Laws," was also recently published in Air & Space Lawyer, a publication of the American Bar Association.

Gipson's article, "States in the Global South Can Improve Their Economies by Rejecting a Favorable Trade Balance Policy and Adopting Free Trade Policies through an ASEAN Modeled Regional Trade Pact," was accepted for publication in 2021 in the Global Studies Law Review. Professor Gipson was recently appointed as Chairman of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Legal Advisory Council.

Donna Harkness Professor Donna Harkness recently presented "Delighting in the Details: Connecting Legal Writing to Document Drafting in Clinic" at the Legal Writing Institute one-day workshop on "Building Connections: Connecting Legal Writing to the Broader Curriculum, the Bar Exam, Practice, and Beyond."

In July, Harkness presented "Durable Power of Attorney Insights" and "Advance Directive Tips: Making Healthcare Wishes Explicit" as part of the National Business Institute's "Estate Planning: Top 8 Tools to Know" webinar.

Additionally, she was recently appointed to serve as Memphis Law's liaison to the Memphis Bar Association (MBA). In this capacity, also serves as a member of both the MBA's Access to Justice and Professionalism committees.

Harkness was also invited to serve as co-executive editor of the NAELA Journal, the flagship publication of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, which publishes substantive articles covering a wide range of elder and special needs law topics.

Deshun Harris Professor Deshun Harris was recently featured in the latest issue of the AccessLex magazine, Raising the Bar, with a piece in the "Distinguished Thinker Commentary" section. Her work was entitled, "Antiracist Strategies to Increase Licensure for Minorities.”

Regina Lambert Hillman Professor Lambert Hillman was appointed coordinator for the law school's legal methods program.

Hillman, alongside Memphis Law professor Anna Vescovo, gave a presentation entitled, "Learning to Paint the Picture in Persuasive Writing with In-Class Exercises" at the Legal Writing Institute's one-day workshop hosted by the KIMEP University School of Law in Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

Daniel Kiel Professor Daniel Kiel was recently invited by the Cardozo Law Review to contribute a piece on modern Supreme Court transitions for an emergency volume they produced in the wake of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The volume, including his article, "A Bolt of Lightning: Measuring the Impact of Modern Supreme Court Transitions," was submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary as it considered replacing Ginsburg.

Additionally, Kiel had two pieces published during the fall regarding a loophole in Tennessee law that could lead to an unconstitutional execution of an individual with intellectual disabilities. The first piece was published as an op-ed in Bloomberg Law, with a longer piece being published in the University of Minnesota's online companion to their journal, Law and Inequality. Professor Kiel also served as a panelist on “Critical Race Theory: What It Is and What It Isn’t,” presented by the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute. This was an online discussion on the importance of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in academic, education and activist studies.

Mary Morris Professor Mary Morris was recently appointed to the Shelby County Ethics Commission by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. Steve Mulroy Professor Steve Mulroy has been a nationally sought-after expert on the topics of voting rights, elections and ballot issues in the past several months. He has been quoted extensively by local, regional and national media outlets and publications.

Mulroy has also been involved in several successful court cases that helped to expand access to absentee ballots in Tennessee. His work helped obtain a court order requiring Tennessee to notify voters that anyone with underlying medical conditions is eligible to vote by mail. Additionally, Mulroy was instrumental in the successful litigation to expand access to absentee ballots to any voter residing with a medically vulnerable person.

Mulroy completed a book chapter on the Voting Rights Act for the upcoming Oxford Handbook of American Election Law (Oxford Univ. Press). He also published eight articles in The Hill, The Conversation and Salon relating to the 2020 elections and COVID risks among the incarcerated. He presented a number of election-related continuing legal educations to the Tennessee Bar Association and Memphis Bar Association and debated a Heritage Foundation election law scholar at an Emory University School of Law event. Fox News Channel, the Canadian Broadcast Company, Voice of America and Sky News Arabia each interviewed him repeatedly on election and impeachment issues; he gave similar interviews to a number of radio and TV stations around the U.S. and Canada, including Memphis outlets. He served as lead counsel in a successful state court lawsuit to expand mail voting access in Tennessee during the pandemic and assisted in the successful lawsuit to improve COVID conditions for pretrial detainees at the Shelby County Jail. He traveled to Georgia for several weeks leading up to the U.S. Senate runoffs in the state, providing election protection legal assistance and ‘ballot cure’ canvassing.

Mulroy was recently elected to the board of the Memphis Bar Association.

Katy Ramsey Mason Professor Katy Ramsey Mason had her work, "Crime-free Housing Ordinances and Eviction," published in the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty's publication, Fast Focus. The subject of the issue was systemic racism and the justice system, with her piece focusing on crime-free rental housing ordinances.

Additionally, her article, "Lessons from Tenant Protection Provisions in Federal Financial Crisis Legislation," was published in the University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Ramsey Mason has recently been at the forefront of the national discussion regarding evictions, particularly as they relate to the pandemic. She has been quoted extensively in both local and national news outlets. Professor Ramsey Mason also testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee oversight hearing on illegal evictions during the pandemic.

Timothy Peterkin Professor Timothy Peterkin joined the Memphis Law faculty as a visiting professor this fall.

Danny Schaffzin Professor Danny Schaffzin was recently honored by the Memphis Bar Association as one of its 2020 Champions of Justice Award recipients in the attorney category.

Schaffzin co-chaired the planning committee for the 2020 Clinical Legal Education Association New Clinicians Conference, which was held virtually in June and drew more than 250 attendees.

He served as senior faculty for the Fourth Annual Strategic Code Enforcement Management Academy.

In partnership with the Tennessee Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission, he served with University of Tennessee College of Law professor Joy Radice as coordinating faculty for the Summer A2J Law Student Fellowship Program.

Schaffzin continues to serve on the team that designed and is leading the Memphis Eviction Settlement Program. David Romantz Professor David Romantz's latest article, "In Defense of Legislative History," was accepted for publication in 2021 in the Mississippi Law Journal. Romantz served as a member of the American Bar Association Site Accreditation Committee for the University of San Diego School of Law.

Nicole Tuchinda Dr. Nicole Tuchinda joined the Memphis Law faculty as a visiting professor this fall.

Anna Vescovo Assistant professor Anna Vescovo, alongside Memphis Law professor Regina Hillman, gave a presentation entitled, "Learning to Paint the Picture in Persuasive Writing with In-Class Exercises," at the Legal Writing Institute's one-day workshop hosted by the KIMEP University School of Law in Kazakhstan in CentralAsia.

Jodi Wilson Associate dean Jodi Wilson's article, "COVID-19 Brings Renewed Attention to Supervised Practice Pending Admission," was recently published in Memphis Lawyer Magazine, the official magazine of the Memphis Bar Association. Professor and associate dean Wilson also co-authored the article, “Law Students and Cell Phone Use: Results of a SixSchool Survey,” in the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review.