UGA School of Law announces appointment of new associate dean and the addition of four professors

Abstract

Thursday, August 10, 2006

WRITER: Kerri Wilson, 706/542-5172, lawcomm@uga.edu CONTACT: Heidi Murphy, 706/542-5172, hmurphy@uga.edu

UGA School of Law announces appointment of new associate dean and the addition of four professors

ATHENS, Ga. -- Daniel M. Bodansky, the holder of the Emily and Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, has been named associate dean for faculty development at the University of Georgia School of Law. In addition, the school has added four new faculty members -- David A. Brennen, Julian A. Cook III, Fazal Khan and Sonja R. West.

Georgia Law Dean Rebecca H. White said the new appointment and additions to the faculty will help to advance the law school's academic mission. "Our new faculty will bolster our curricular offerings in tax law, criminal law, evidence, media law and constitutional law as well as in the increasingly important area of health law. In his new role as associate dean for faculty development, Professor Bodanksy will work closely with the law school's faculty, especially our junior faculty, to expand and promote scholarly activities."

Internationally recognized as one of the premier authorities on global climate change, Bodansky joined the UGA law faculty in the fall of 2002. From 1989 to 2002, he was a faculty member of the University of Washington School of Law and has taught as an adjunct professor at the George Washington School of Law and the Georgetown University Law Center. He has served as the climate change coordinator and attorney-advisor at the U.S. Department of State in addition to consulting for the United Nations in the areas of climate change and tobacco control. Bodansky is a former judicial clerk of Judge Irving Goldberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He earned his bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Harvard University, his master's in the history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University and his law degree from Yale University, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal .

Brennen joins Georgia Law from Mercer University, where he most recently served as the Ellison C. Palmer Professor of Tax Law. He will teach courses in tax law at UGA. In addition to 11 years of university-level teaching, Brennen has worked as assistant general counsel for Florida's Department of Revenue, where his practice areas included tax litigation oversight and tax policy advisory opinions, and worked as an associate with the law firm Messer, Vickers, Caparello, Madsen, Lewis, Goldman & Metz in Tallahassee, where he specialized in tort, tax and environmental litigation. Brennen earned his bachelor's degree from Florida Atlantic University and his law degree and Master of Laws in Tax from the University of Florida.

Having most recently taught as an associate professor at Michigan State University, Cook joins the law school with nearly 10 years of legal teaching experience. A former judicial clerk of Judge Philip M. Pro of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, Cook will instruct in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure and evidence. His other professional experience includes several years as an assistant U.S. attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice for the District of Nevada and the District of Columbia, where he worked in the civil, narcotics and general criminal divisions and was a member of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Cook earned his bachelor's degree from Duke University, his Master of Public Administration from Columbia University and his law degree from the University of Virginia.

Specializing in health law, Khan joins UGA with considerable experience in both the legal and medical fields. Prior to joining the Georgia Law faculty, Khan served as a litigation associate for the Chicago firm Jenner & Block and as a mock trial developer for the National Foundation for Judicial Excellence. He has held multiple teaching and research assistantships for the University of Illinois colleges of law and medicine as well as the university's Institute for Government and Public Affairs and the University of Chicago Department of Pharmacology/Physiology. Khan earned his bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Chicago, where he was a National Merit Scholar. He graduated magna cum laude from law school in 2000 and earned his M.D. in 2003, both at the University of Illinois, where he served as book review editor of the University of Illinois Law Review and was a Richardson Scholar at the College of Medicine.

West joins Georgia Law from the University of Alabama where she was the Hugo Black Faculty Fellow. She will teach courses in media law and constitutional law. West is a former judicial clerk of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judge Dorothy W. Nelson. She served for several years as an associate with the Los Angeles firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Davis Wright Tremaine, where she represented media clients on a variety of First Amendment and intellectual property issues at the trial and appellate levels. West earned her bachelor's degree with honors and distinction from the University of Iowa and her law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago, where she served as executive editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

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