Professor Nancy Combs to Become New Vice Dean
Vice Dean Nancy Combs Professor Nancy Combs became Vice Dean on August 10. Combs served as the 2009-11 Cabell Research Professor of Law, and was a 2009 recipient of William & Mary's Alumni Fellowship Award for teaching excellence.
William & Mary Law School is pleased to announce that Professor Nancy Combs will become the school’s newest Vice Dean, effective August 10, 2011. Combs served as the 2009-11 Cabell Research Professor of Law, and was a 2009 recipient of William & Mary’s Alumni Fellowship Award for teaching excellence.
Law School Dean Davison M. Douglas said he is looking forward to working with Combs in her new role. “Nancy possesses a wonderful combination of skills that will enable her to be a very successful Vice Dean,” said Douglas. “She has excellent judgment, is an accomplished scholar and teacher, is greatly respected by her peers, has terrific interpersonal skills, and is very well organized. I will enjoy working with her.”
Combs joined the faculty in 2004. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), she was awarded the Thelin Marrin prize for graduating first in her class, and she served as an Articles Editor on the California Law Review. Combs received her B.A. in philosophy, summa cum laude, from the University of Portland and her Ph.D. from Leiden University. After law school, Combs served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court.
Prior to joining the faculty, Combs worked as a legal advisor at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, The Netherlands. She has written extensively on topics in international law and international criminal justice, including numerous articles and essays appearing in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Hastings Law Journal, the Harvard International Law Journal, and the Chicago Journal of International Law, among others. Her most recent book, Fact-Finding without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations of International Criminal Convictions, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010.