Faculty Notes
Aug. 1, 2020
Preparing the next generation of attorneys is a mission our Toledo Law faculty do not take lightly. They are impressive scholars and educators. In the following entries, you will get a glimpse of the activity faculty have engaged in over the past academic year. Explore our part-time faculty page for information about lecturers.
Full-Time Faculty
John Barrett
Associate Professor of Law
Barrett has been busy helping negotiate a collective bargaining agreement on behalf of the
law school faculty, as well as serving on the American Association of University Professors
board. He also had an article on rethinking how the U.S. regulates political advertising
accepted for publication with the St. John's Law Review.
Kara Bruce
Professor of Law
Bruce was selected by the first-year class to receive the Beth Eisler First Year Teaching
Award. She published "Bankruptcy's Adjunct Regulator" in the Florida Law Review. She
also published "Detangling Discovery and Tolling Doctrines: The Educational Value
of Rotkiske v. Klemm" and "Prudential Standing in Bankruptcy Appeals: Recent Developments and Unanswered
Questions" in the Bankruptcy Law Letter. She served as president of the Central States
Law Schools Association and hosted its annual meeting in September 2019, where she
presented her work in progress, "Rabble Rousers as Private Enforcers."
Lesa Byrnes
Legal Writing Professor and Director of Academic Success and Bar Preparation
Byrnes continued to implement measures designed to improve students' performance on the
bar exam, including advising a quarter of all Toledo Law students on course selection
likely to enhance bar passage and overseeing a faculty mentoring program where each
graduate is assigned a faculty mentor to provide support during bar exam study. Byrnes
piloted a new program using academic success tutors to lead workshops to help first-year
students with study techniques, outlining, and exam-taking. She also taught in the
college's Launch into Law program, which is geared toward increasing the number of
historically underserved students enrolled in law school.
Shelley Cavalieri
Professor of Law
Cavalieri was promoted to full professor this year. Newly named as the program advisor of the
J.D./M.P.H. program, she spent significant time working with her colleagues in the
public health department to develop a new major in the public health program focused
on health policy and law. Cavalieri taught public health law in an innovative new
format as an online course for law and public health students, in which students collaborate
in interdisciplinary simulations on topics such as preventing public health problems
such as teenage smoking and responding to public health emergencies such as pandemics.
Eric C. Chaffee
Distinguished University Professor
Chaffee was appointed a Distinguished University Professor, the highest permanent honor the University bestows on faculty members. He was also
selected by graduating students as the recipient of the Outstanding Professor Award
for Dedication to Legal Education. He continued work on his book, "The Corporation
Defined: Collaboration Theory and the Corporate Form," and he authored annual updates
to his loose-leaf treatise with Professor Emeritus Howard Friedman, "Securities Regulation
in Cyberspace." Chaffee organized the Ohio Securities and National Business Law Scholars
conferences. He served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS)
Section on Securities Regulation and presented his research at conferences throughout
the country.
Benjamin G. Davis
Professor of Law
Davis published "ODR and Social Justice: Technology not Tricknology" in the International
Journal of Online Dispute Resolution. He filed an amicus curiae brief in favor of
respondents in the U.S. Supreme Court case GE Energy Power Conversion France SAS v. Outokumpu Stainless USA LLC. Davis made several presentations to organizations on topics, including diversity in
international online dispute resolution and social justice. He was the keynote speaker
on diversity in international arbitration at the Young International Council for Commercial
Arbitration and Blacks of the American Society of International Law joint conference
in New York. He also co-chaired the UToledo 1619 Committee, which organized a series
of events to honor the 300-year experience of Black Americans. Professor Davis is
on a special assignment leave for the fall. He has announced his retirement, effective
Jan. 31, 2021.
Maara Fink
Clinical Professor of Law
Fink expanded externship opportunities for students with the addition of the Corporate
Counsel Externship. Under her direction, students continue to engage in public service
and mediation practice through Public Service and Mediation externships. Fink was
humbled to receive the 2019 Eastman & Smith Faculty Achievement Award. She also gave
several professional presentations on various topics, including updates on the Dispute
Resolution Clinic for the Lucas County Bar Association and Legal Issues for Teens
at Ottawa Hills High School. She continues to serve as faculty advisor to the Black
Law Students Association.
Llewellyn Joseph Gibbons
Distinguished University Professor
Gibbons lectured at Nankai University, one of the top 10 universities in China. Gibbons'
lecture was "AI: The Challenges of Virtual Authors and Virtual Inventors to the Modern
Intellectual Property Regime." He was among 100 outstanding scholars or academicians
with international or global reputations who delivered lectures on topics of extraordinary
significance to create an atmosphere of pursuing and striving for excellence. He also
published an article, "Liberty or Licentiousness: Dissenting Disparaging and Scandalous
Marks Post-Tam and Brunetti," and is finishing a book project.
Gregory M. Gilchrist
Professor of Law
Gilchrist completed an article on the willful blindness doctrine that will be published by
the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. The article examines this doctrine from its
origins in the British naval yards of the 1600s and grapples with challenges it presents
to basic principles of legality. He urges courts to reconsider Justice Anthony Kennedy's
repeated-but-largely-ignored suggestion to consider willful blindness not as a novel
category of mens rea, but rather as a type of circumstantial evidence. Gilchrist continues
to represent federal criminal defendants by court appointment, and lately, he has
been grappling with challenges defendants face during a crisis that has all but closed
federal courts.
Rick Goheen
Assistant Dean for the LaValley Law Library and Associate Professor of Law
Goheen retired from the executive board of the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries
after 11 years as treasurer, vice president, president, and past president. Along
with library staff, he continues his work on improving the library space for our students
and making its resources more accessible.
Kenneth Kilbert
Professor of Law
Kilbert was the lead author of an October 2019 white paper, "An Assessment of the Great Lakes
States' Implementation of the Water Management and Conservation Provisions of the
Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact." The assessment, issued
by the college's Legal Institute of the Great Lakes and funded by a grant from The
Joyce Foundation, covered all eight Great Lakes states. He was assisted by student
co-authors Aubrey Merkle and Forrest Miller. Kilbert also organized the 19th Annual
Great Lakes Water Conference, held at the college on Nov. 8, 2019.
Jessica Knouse
Professor of Law
Knouse delivered the Fifth Annual Katheryn D. Katz '70 Memorial Lecture at Albany Law School.
She presented "Reproductive Indeterminacy: Rethinking Rights Discourse in Frozen Embryo
Disputes" at the Central States Law School Association Annual Scholarship Conference
and the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting. At the 10th Annual Constitutional
Law Colloquium, Knouse presented "Frozen Embryos and 'Pro-Life' Politics." She also
presented a CLE at the Toledo Women's Bar Association Annual Meeting. Knouse received the Eastman & Smith Faculty Achievement Award in 2020. She is an active member of the Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network
and UToledo Law & Social Thought Working Group.
Bryan Lammon
Professor of Law
Lammon taught appellate procedure, civil procedure, conflict of laws, and evidence. He continued
his study of federal appellate jurisdiction, including several projects on interlocutory
appeals from the denial of qualified immunity. He also started a website called Final
Decisions, where he writes about appellate procedure and jurisdiction. Lammon continued
advising the college's Moot Court program.
Dan Nathan
Clinical Professor of Law
Nathan continued as a board member of Student Legal Services, which provides free
legal services to University of Toledo students and the Medical-Legal Partnership
for Children, which addresses legal issues that impact children's health. He also
volunteered for the Children's Rights Collaborative monitoring visits for parents
required by court order to be supervised around their children. Professor Nathan left
the College of Law on June 30, 2020. He is pursuing a graduate degree in counseling
with plans to open a practice upon completion of his degree.
Katherine Raup O'Connell
Legal Writing Professor and Director of Legal Writing
O'Connell oversees the law school's legal writing program, including coordinating panels of
legal practitioners addressing Lawyering Skills students on objective legal writing
and appellate advocacy. She also organizes the annual Sixth District Court of Appeals
of Ohio oral arguments at the college. This fall, she is looking forward to teaching
a new transactional drafting course, a long-awaited addition to the writing curriculum.
Nicole Buonocore Porter
Professor of Law
Porter published four articles in the past year on various disability law topics. She also
accepted an offer to publish "Relationships and Retaliation in the #MeToo Era" in
the Florida Law Review. Her article "Cumulative Hardship," published in the George
Mason Law Review, won the college's 2020 Faculty Scholarship Award. Porter is eagerly
awaiting publication of three book projects: "Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Employment
Discrimination Opinions," "ABA-BNA's Employment Discrimination Law" treatise, and
the 10th edition of an employment discrimination law casebook. She was recently quoted in a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit
for her article, "Sex Plus Age Discrimination: Protecting Older Women Workers."
Marilyn Preston
Legal Writing Professor
Preston will continue her work with Law and Leadership Institute (LLI) summer session hosted
at the college, which aims to interest students from diverse backgrounds to consider
the legal profession. She will also teach two online classes this summer, Lawyering
Skills II and Mastering Law School Exams.
Geoffrey C. Rapp
Sr. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Harold A. Anderson Professor of Law and Values
Rapp completed service as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on
Associate Deans for Academic Affairs and Research. He published a casebook on tort
law as part of Wolters Kluwer's "In Focus" series. He is a faculty advisor for the
University's chapter of the Student Veterans of America and a member of the Department
of Athletics Professional Sports Counseling Panel, which advises UToledo athletes
considering professional sports careers.
Rob Salem
Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion and Clinical Professor of Law
Salem presented on the "Rights of Transgender Children in Custody Disputes" for the annual
Domestic Relations Seminar at the Toledo Bar Association. He spoke on the same subject
at an event sponsored by the Toledo Women's Bar Association. Salem was also a commentator
and panelist for a program entitled "Finding Friendship in a Contentious Place: A
Conversation with Obergefell and Hodges from the Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Case
on Same-Sex Marriage," which was sponsored by The University of Toledo Law Review.
Joseph Slater
Distinguished University Professor and Eugene N. Balk Professor of Law and Values
Slater testified before Congress in favor of a bill that would grant collective bargaining
rights to public employees in states that do not provide them. He was also involved
in the unionization of the law school faculty. Slater is working on new editions of
his casebooks, had a chapter in a Cambridge University Press book, a law review article
published, and a piece for JOTWELL.
Lee J. Strang
John W. Stoepler Professor of Law and Values
Strang published "Originalism's Promise: A Natural Law Account of the American Constitution,"
which received the college's 2019 Faculty Scholarship Award. St. John's University
Law School hosted a symposium on his manuscript, "A Light Unseen: A History of American
Catholic Legal Education," that included scholars from Georgetown, Notre Dame, and
Boston College. He presented at numerous fora, including at the University of Texas,
University of Illinois, and Indiana University-Bloomington. He served as chair-elect
of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Constitutional Law and presented
a paper at the annual conference.
Rebecca Zietlow
Charles W. Fornoff Professor of Law and Values
Zietlow published "'Where Do We Go From Here?' Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Workers' Rights"
in the Harvard Law & Policy Review and accepted an offer to publish "The New Peonage:
Liberty and Precarity for Workers in the Gig Economy" in the Wake Forest Law Review.
She also entered into a contract with Edward Elgar Publishing to edit and write an
extensive introduction to a collection of articles entitled "Constitutional Law and
Equality." Zietlow was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School
for the 2019-20 academic year. She serves as co-chair for the Labor Rights Collaborative
Research Network.
Evan C. Zoldan
Professor of Law
Zoldan researches and writes in the field of legislation. He published "Corpus Linguistics
and the Dream of Objectivity" in the Seton Hall Law Review and has accepted offers
to publish "The Vanishing Core of Judicial Independence" with the Nevada Law Journal
and "Delegation to Nonexperts" in the Penn Law Review Online. He has presented his
work at numerous conferences, including the Legislation Roundtable at Yale Law School,
the Loyola University Chicago Constitutional Law Colloquium, and the Association of
American Law Schools Annual Meeting. Zoldan received the Eastman & Smith Faculty Achievement Award in 2020.