About the Center for Law, Society and Justice
The Center for Law, Society, and Justice is the institutional home of the Legal Studies Program and the Criminal Justice Certificate Program.
The faculty of the Center for Law, Society and Justice come from a wide variety of disciplines. Except for the Associate Director, all faculty have a primary affiliation with a tenure granting unit such as Law, History, Political Science, or Sociology.
The Core Faculty teach a combination of disciplinary courses with a law focus and courses specifically designed to be interdisciplinary. Their teaching includes the gateway courses in the new Legal Studies curriculum (Legal Studies 131 and 217) and the Legal Studies capstone course (Legal Studies 641). Core Faculty members participate in curricular design and course development activities, set policies for students in the Center programs, and provide guidance to academic staff.
In addition to the Core Faculty, a number of Associated Faculty, teach a variety of disciplinary courses that have a law or legal institution focus.
Joseph Conti
Donald R. Davis,
Jr.
Donald Downs
Robert E. Drechsel
Howard S. Erlanger
Ralph Grunewald
Kathryn Hendley
Alexandra Huneeus
Irene B. Katele
Richard Keyser
Liane Kosaki
Carolyn Lesch
Sida Liu
Alan Rubel
Howard Schweber
Mitra Sharafi
Karl Shoemaker
Associated Faculty
Larry
Nesper, Anthropology and American Indian Studies
Asifa Quraishi,
Law
Joseph Conti
jconti@ssc.wisc.edu
Joseph Conti is an assistant professor of sociology and law at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2008 and was a post-doctoral scholar at the American Bar Foundation. Professor Conti specializes in sociology of law and economic sociology and teaches classes related to globalization, global governance, American society, and the sociology of law. His research interests include global governance, law and globalization, and international trade, particularly the dispute settlement systems of the World Trade Organization. His current research focuses on multilevel regulatory regimes for trade and for nanotechnology.
Professor Conti has published articles on the World Trade Organization in Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and the Socio-Economic Review. With co-authors he has published articles related to nanotechnology in Environmental Science & Technology, Nature Nanotechnology, and the Journal of Nanoparticle Research. His book, Between Law and Diplomacy: the Social Contexts of Disputing at the World Trade Organization, is forthcoming in 2010 from Stanford University Press. This book is based on his dissertation, which received the Lancaster Dissertation Award from the University of California, Santa Barbara for the best social science dissertation completed between 2008 and 2010.
Donald A.
Davis, Jr.
drdavis@wisc.edu
1244 Van Hise Hall
(608) 890-0138
Donald R. Davis, Jr. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages & Cultures of Asia. He holds a PhD in Asian Languages & Cultures from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on law and religion in India, especially in the classical and medieval periods, and on comparative religious law. He was a Fellow at the UW Institute for Research in the Humanities in 2007 and also received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities during 2007-08, during which time he completed a book entitled The Spirit of Hindu Law (New York: Cambridge UP, 2010). He also recently published (with Timothy Lubin and Jayanth Krishnan) Hinduism and Law: An Introduction (also Cambridge UP, 2010). Currently, he is starting a project on the practice of classical and modern Hindu law. His other recent publications include: "Law in the Mirror of Language: the Madras School of Orientalism on Hindu Law," in The Madras School of Orientalism: Producing Knowledge in Colonial South India, ed. Thomas R. Trautmann, Delhi: Oxford UP (2009): 288-309; "Before Virtue: Halakhah, Dharmasastra, and What Law Can Create," Law & Contemporary Problems 71:2 (2008): 99-108; "Law," in Studying Hinduism: Key Concepts and Methods. Eds. Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby. New York: Routledge, 218-229; "Maxims and Precedent in Classical Hindu Law," Indologica Taurinensia 33 (2007): 33-56; "Hinduism as a Legal Tradition." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 75:2 (2007): 241-267.
Donald
Downs
dadowns@wisc.edu
306 North Hall
263-2295
Donald Downs is a Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism.
His primary interests are constitutional law and civil liberty; criminal
law and justice; law and society broadly defined; political theory and
jurisprudence; and legal, normative, and political issues in higher
education. Downs has taught a wide variety of courses related to law
and politics. He has published four books, two of which have won national
awards: Nazis in Skokie: Freedom, Community and the First Amendment;
The New Politics of Pornography; More than Victims: Battered Women,
the Syndrome Society, and the Law; and Cornell `69: Liberalism
and the Crisis of the American University. He is currently finishing
a book on the politics and law of civil liberty struggles on campus,
an area in which he has also been active.
Robert E. Drechsel
drechsel@wisc.edu
5115 Vilas Communications Hall
263-3394
Robert Drechsel is Professor Journalism and Mass Communication and Professor
of Law. He holds a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of
Minnesota, and has been a member of the Wisconsin faculty since 1983.
He served as director of the Journalism School from 1991 to 1998. In 1999-2000,
he served as director of the behavioral science and law major and as director
of the criminal justice certificate program. Drechsel teaches courses
including Journ. 559 (Law of Mass Communication); Journ 675, Topics in
Government and Mass Media; and two graduate seminars in mass communication
law and policy. His research has focused on tort law and constitutional
law affecting mass communication, and on reporter-source interaction in
state trial courts. Most recently, the former has focused on the relationship
between law and ethics, and law and professionalism. Drechsel is the author
of one book, News Making in the Trial Courts, and articles in a
variety of legal and communication journals.
Howard
S. Erlanger
erlanger@ssc.wisc.edu
9109 Law Building
263-7405
Howard S. Erlanger
currently serves as the Director of the Legal Studies Program and the
Criminal Justice Certificate Program. A member of the UW faculty since
1971, he is Voss-Bascom Professor of Law, Professor of Sociology, and
Director of the Institute for Legal Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology
from the University of California at Berkeley, and a J.D. from the University
of Wisconsin. Professor Erlanger is the recipient of a number of awards
for his teaching and research, including the Steiger and Underkofler
awards from the University for excellence in teaching, and the Wheeler mentorship award from the Law and Society Association. Professor Erlanger is a past-President
of the Law and Society Association and since 1982 he has
been Review Section Editor of Law and Social Inquiry, where he has solicited
and edited over 400 article-length essays representing the great diversity
of views in socio-legal studies. His own socio-legal research has primarily
focused on the legal profession - especially on the careers of lawyers
in public interest practice and the socialization of law students -
and on topics related to dispute resolution and to law and organizations. Ralph Grunewald has an appointment with both the Legal Studies Program and the Department of Comparative Literature, where he serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies. At UW-Madison, Ralph teaches classes on American criminal justice, juvenile justice, comparative criminal justice, and law and literature. He also taught at the University of Mainz and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. His research interests include (comparative) criminal law and procedure, criminal justice, and law and literature. Ralph received his law degree from the University of Mainz and the State of Bavaria, Germany, and practiced law as a defense attorney in a German law firm specializing in white-collar crime. He earned a Ph.D. in Criminal Law and Criminology from the University of Mainz in 2002 (summa cum laude) and received a Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School (2005). Ralph has published one monograph ("The De-Individualization of the Principle of Education in the German Juvenile Justice Act", German language, 2003 by Duncker & Humblot) and ten articles in law journals and is currently working on a book on Innocence Projects. Professor Hendley's research
focuses on legal and economic reform in the former Soviet Union. She
is currently engaged in an inter-disciplinary project aimed at understanding
how business is conducted in Russia and the role of law in business
transactions and corporate governance. This project has been funded
by the World Bank, the National Science Foundation, and the National
Council for Eurasian and East European Research. She teaches Contracts,
as well as courses related to her interest in Russia, such as Russian
Law, International Business Transactions, Comparative
Law, and Transitions to the Market. She has served as a consultant to
the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank in
their work on legal reform in Russia. Professor Hendley is currently
the Director of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia,
which receives Title VI funding from the Professor Hendley's
web site can be found at http://www.polisci.wisc.edu/users/hendley Alexandra Huneeus
studies the judicialization of politics, the politics of human rights,
and legal culture in Latin America. Her Ph.D. dissertation centered
on the Chilean judiciary’s changing attitude towards cases of Pinochet-era
human rights violations. She teaches sociology of law, human rights,
Before joining
the UW faculty in 2007, Professor Huneeus was a fellow at Stanford University’s
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She received her
Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley (2006), and her J.D. from Boalt Hall, the Berkeley
Law School (2001). As a human rights fellow at the International Human
Rights Clinic at Boalt Hall in 2004, she supervised students bringing
a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The successful
challenge resulted in a ruling ordering the Dominican Republic to alter
its citizenship policies and practices. She also worked on the case
against Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Spain, through the Center for
Justice and Accountability in San Francisco. Prior to her turn
to law, Professor Huneeus worked as an editor and journalist in Santiago,
Chile, her native city, and in San Francisco, her home town. If there were more
days in the week, she would spend them dancing (modern/jazz), writing,
reading novels, and with her family.
Irene B. Katele
Ralph Grunewald
grunewald@wisc.edu
Kathryn
Hendley
khendley@wisc.edu
Law Building, 975 Bascom Mall
U.S. Department of Education.
Alexandra Huneeus
huneeus@wisc.edu 
ikatele@ssc.wisc.edu
Irene B. Katele is Associate Director of the Legal Studies Program.
She earned a JD at the University of Wisconsin Law School, a PhD and
AM in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and
a BA in History from Northwestern University. Katele taught history
for four years, first at The Ohio State University and then at the University
of South Carolina. As an historian, her area of expertise was piracy,
and she studied its impact on Venice during the Crusades. While in law
school, Katele served as Editor-in-Chief of the Wisconsin Law Review,
was a member of the Moot Court Board, and worked as a judicial intern
to Judge John L. Coffey of the United States Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit. She also received the Abner Brodie Award for Outstanding
Contribution to Life at the Law School. After law school, she clerked
for Justice David Prosser, Jr. of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and then
was an associate in the estate planning practice area at the Madison
office of Michael Best & Friedrich LLP. Katele is licensed to practice
law in Wisconsin.
Richard Keyser
rkeyser@wisc.edu
Richard Keyser holds an appointment in the Legal Studies program, teaching classes on American Legal History, Environment and Law, and, in the History Department, Lordship, Monarchy, and Rebellion in Medieval Europe. He earned a Ph.D. in History at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on social, legal, and environmental history, especially in medieval France and England. His work has appeared in the Revue Historique, French Historical Studies, and Law and History Review (forthcoming, 2012). He is currently working on a book project that examines the development of civil law jurisdiction in medieval Champagne. His 2009 essay on "The Transformation of Traditional Woodland Management" won the American Society for Environmental History's Alice Hamilton prize for best article of the year.
Liane Kosaki
lkosaki@wisc.edu
Liane Kosaki came to the University of Wisconsin in 1993. She received a BA with honors from the University of Hawaii and an MA and PhD in political science from the University of Michigan. She has taught at Southern Illinois University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Beloit College. Kosaki currently serves as Director of Undergraduate Programs in the political science department and teaches constitutional law. She is a recipient of the L&S Academic Staff Advising Award. Her co-authored article (with Charles H. Franklin), "The Republican Schoolmaster: The US Supreme Court, Public Opinion, and Abortion" received the Lasting Contribution Award from the Law and Courts section of the American Political Science Association.
Carolyn Lesch
clesch@ssc.wisc.edu
8139 Sewell Social Science Building
262-4360
Carolyn Lesch earned her Master's in Social Work from UW Madison in 1992. She first joined the Criminal Justice Certificate Program staff as a Field Instructor during the summer of 1998. Since 2003, she has served as Academic Advisor and administrator for the Program. She manages the required internship component including vital outreach to the criminal and juvenile justice communities. Carolyn teaches foundational field education and practicum courses. She has more than 20 years of direct practice experience working with court-ordered youth and their families. Carolyn is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Psychotherapist. Her areas of expertise include adolescent development, child and adolescent mental health, juvenile male sexual offending behavior, multigenerational and interfamilial sexual abuse dynamics, and family systems theory and intervention. Carolyn is a Senior Preceptor in the UW-Madison School of Social Work.
Sida Liu is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He specializes in the sociology of law, focusing on the legal reform and legal profession in contemporary China. Professor Liu received his LL.B. degree from Peking University Law School and his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago. Professor Liu has written widely on various aspects of China's law reforms and legal profession, including lower court justice, popular legal advice, the criminal justice system, and the corporate law market. He has published articles in the Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, and China Quarterly, as well as extensively in leading law and social science journals in China. In addition, Professor Liu has published two books in Chinese: The Lost Polis: Transformation of the Legal Profession in Contemporary China (Peking University Press, 2008), and The Logic of Fragmentation: An Ecological Analysis of the Chinese Legal Services Market(Shanghai Joint Publishing Co., 2011). He also translated and edited The Holmes Reader: Selected Essays and Public Speeches of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (Shanghai Joint Publishing Co., 2009). Currently, Professor Liu is working on a large project on the politics of Chinese criminal defense lawyers, funded by the National Science Foundation and American Bar Foundation.
Alan Rubel
arubel@wisc.edu
Alan Rubel is an assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Studies and the Legal Studies Program. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Before joining the faculty at UW he was a Greenwall Fellow in Bioethics and Health Law Policy at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University. He served as a law clerk to Justice Ann Walsh Bradley of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 2006-2008. His publications include articles on nanotechnology and surveillance, labeling genetically engineered foods, the medical privacy of presidential candidates, the USA Patriot Act, and persons' claims to privacy. His current research includes projects on public health surveillance and the relation between corporate speech and the value of speech rights to individuals. Before graduate school he worked as a biological technician and ranger for the National Park Service.
Howard
Schweber
schweber@polisci.wisc.edu
Howard Schweber joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Fall 1999. He received his PhD in Government from Cornell University in 1999 and an MA in History from the University of Chicago after spending five years practicing law. He teaches courses focusing on constitutional law and legal and political theory. He is the author of Speech, Conduct and the First Amendment (Peter Lang Press, 2003), The Creation of American Common Law, 1850-1880: Technology, Politics, and the Construction of Citizenship (Cambridge 2004), and The Language of Liberal Constitutionalism (Cambridge 2007), as well as articles, essays, and book chapters on a variety of related topics. His current areas of research include comparative analyses of different constitutional systems and the construction of "public" and "private" as categories of legal and political discourse. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy and in the past has been actively involved with the Center for Civic Education's We the People program. In addition, Schweber was the coach of the UW-Madison's College Mock Trial Team from 1999-2002, but has retired, according to a spokesman, "to spend more time with his family." Professor Schweber is regularly featured on Wisconsin Public Radio programs and gives frequent newspaper and television interviews. In 2004 he was the recipient of the William H. Kiekhoffer Award for Distinguished Teaching. He has also twice been selected as the Pi Sigma Alpha Professor of the
Mitra Sharafi
sharafi@wisc.edu
Mitra Sharafi is a legal historian of colonial India. She holds two UK law degrees (BA Cambridge 1998, BCL Oxford 1999) and a doctorate in History (PhD Princeton 2006). She teaches two undergraduate Legal Studies courses, namely "Legal Pluralism" and "Law and Colonialism." She also teaches contract law to first-year law students. Sharafi has written on South Asian legal history (including the history of Zoroastrian and Islamic personal law), the history of the legal profession, legal pluralism, and slavery.Currently, she is completing a book manuscript entitled, "Parsi Legal Culture in British India." Her book examines one colonized ethno-religious minority that adopted the colonizers' law ways to an unusual degree. Her next major project will be a study of medical jurisprudence in British India. In 2009-11, Sharafi's research was funded by the National Science Foundation. In 2011-12, she will hold a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Sharafi maintains a website of South Asian Legal History Resources, which includes her publications: http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/wordpress/sharafi/
Karl
Shoemaker
kbshoemaker@wisc.edu
4046 Humanities
263-1830
Karl Shoemaker is Assistant Professor of History and Law. He holds a PhD
in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California,
Berkeley, and
a JD from Cumberland School of Law. He is a legal historian, with particular
focus on pre-modern legal traditions. His research and teaching interests
include the history of criminal law and punishment, and historical and
philosophical approaches to the institutions of modern criminal justice.
He is currently an Associate Editor
of the Journal of Law Culture and the Humanities. In 2006-07, Professor
Shoemaker was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
He has also held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities
and the North American Conference on British Studies. He is currently
working on the history of the right to sanctuary as well as a set of medieval
texts which imagined the devil as a litigant. Recent publications include
(with William Courtenay) "The Tears of Nicholas: Simony and Perjury
by a Parisian Master of Theology in the Fourteenth Century," Accepted
by Speculum (forthcoming, 2008); "Revenge as a 'Medium Good'
in the Twelfth Century" in 1 Law, Culture, and Humanities,
333-358 (2005); "The Birth of Official Criminal Prosecutions in American
Law" in Rechtssystem im Vergleich: Die Staatsanwaltschaft (2005),
The Problem of Pain in Punishment: A Historical Perspective," in
Pain, Death, and the Law (A. Sarat, ed., 2001); and "Criminal Procedure
in Medieval European Law: A Comparison Between English and Roman-Canonical
Developments after the IV Lateran Council," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung
für Rechtsgeschichte - Kanonistische Abteilung (1999).