Four Faculty Appointed to Named Professorships

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Professors Nancy Combs, Neal E. Devins, James G. Dwyer, and Michael Steven Green have been appointed to named professorships, William & Mary Law School announced today.

"These professorships recognize the achievements of four of the Law School's outstanding scholars and teachers," said Law School Dean Davison M. Douglas.

Professor Nancy Combs and Ernest W. Goodrich Professor of Law and Professor of Government Neal E. Devins were appointed William H. Cabell Research Professors for the 2010-11 academic year. The professorships are funded by the Cabell Foundation of Richmond, which was established in 1957 by Robert G. Cabell III and Maude Morgan Cabell.

This is the second consecutive year that Combs has received a Cabell chair. An expert in international criminal law and human rights, she is the author of Fact-Finding Without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations of International Criminal Convictions (Cambridge University Press 2010) and Guilty Pleas in International Criminal Law: Constructing a Restorative Justice Approach (Stanford University Press 2007). A member of the faculty since 2004, she received a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. (International Law) from Leiden University.

Devins came to William & Mary in 1987 and serves as Director of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law and Director of the Election Law Program.

He is author or editor of ten books, including Shaping Constitutional Values: The Supreme Court, Elected Government, and the Abortion Dispute (Johns Hopkins University Press 1996), and is editor of Duke University Press's Constitutional Conflicts book series.  He also has published more than 100 articles, essays, and book chapters. He received a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School.

Professor James G. Dwyer has been named the Arthur B. Hanson Professor, a permanent professorship named in honor of the late Arthur Briggs ("Tim") Hanson, a 1940 graduate of the Law School. Hanson was a founding trustee of the Law School Foundation and played a pivotal role in the founding of the Institute of Bill of Rights Law. Widely recognized as an expert in First Amendment law, Hanson served as General Counsel of both the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the National Geographic Society.

Dwyer is the Law School's second Hanson Professor. Dean Douglas was appointed to a Hanson chair in 2001.

Dwyer joined the faculty in 2000 and is an expert on children's rights and family law. He is the author of more than twenty articles and book chapters and four books, the most recent of which are The Superiority of Youth: Moral Status and How We Treat Children (forthcoming 2010) and The Relationship Rights of Children (2006), both published by Cambridge University Press. He received a J.D. from Yale University and a Ph.D. (Moral and Political Philosophy) from Stanford University.

Professor Michael Steven Green was appointed to the newly created Robert E. & Elizabeth S. Scott Research Professorship for the coming school year. Robert E. Scott is a 1968 graduate of the Law School and a member of the College's Board of Visitors. He is the Alfred McCormack Professor at Columbia Law School, a former dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Elizabeth S. Scott is a 1967 graduate of the College of William & Mary and is the Harold R. Medina Professor of Procedural Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School. She taught previously at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was founder and co-director of the interdisciplinary Center for Children, Families and the Law.

Green has been a faculty member since 2006 and specializes in conflict of laws, constitutional law, and philosophy of law. He is the author of Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition (University of Illinois Press 2002) and twenty articles, essays, and book chapters. He was a 2007-08 Cabell Research Professor, and taught previously at George Mason University Law School and in the Department of Philosophy at Tufts University. He received a J.D. and Ph.D. (Philosophy) from Yale University.