The new professors’ impressive credentials in property law, community development, international investment law, immigration, criminal justice, administrative law, constitutional law, and critical theory will enhance BC Law’s scholarly and clinical strengths. The newcomers enter classrooms this fall.
Thomas W. Mitchell, a MacArthur fellow and expert in property law, will join as Professor of Law and holder of the Robert F. Drinan, SJ, Chair. After receiving his BA from Amherst College, JD from Howard University, and LLM from the University of Wisconsin Law School, Mitchell has focused on promoting equity in property wealth among Black and underprivileged families and on law reform that reflects this commitment to social justice. At Texas A&M University School of Law, he co-founded and co-directed the Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law. Webpage
Lisa T. Alexander, a scholar in property and public law reform, joins as Professor of Law, with the mission to tackle Boston’s housing challenges and promote a reimagining of US housing markets. She received her JD from Columbia University School of Law and BA from Wesleyan University, and served as a professor at University of Wisconsin Law from 2006 to 2016. While at Texas A&M University School of Law, Alexander was a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and co-founded and co-directed the Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law. In 2018, she was named a University Presidential Impact Fellow. Webpage
Jenna M. Cobb, joining as Assistant Clinical Professor, received her JD from Harvard Law School, BA in Political Science from the University of Southern California, and MDiv from the Yale Divinity School. She recently served as an adjunct professor at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law and as staff attorney for the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service. Cobb combines her passion for teaching with complex litigation experience in the criminal justice system. Webpage
Felipe Ford Cole joins BC Law following a Sharswood Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. He is completing a PhD in history at Northwestern University and received his JD there. These are accompanied by an MPhil in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge and a BA in history from New York University. This extensive journey in academia has solidified a love of learning and comparative legal and historical research focused on the law’s influence on sovereign power and private capital in the US and Latin America. Webpage
Bijal Shah joins BC Law as Associate Professor of Law and Provost Faculty Fellow. Her research lies at the intersection of administrative law, structural constitutionalism, and critical theory, and is grounded in the specifics of agency dynamics (particularly in matters of immigration and interagency coordination). Her work appears in publications including the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Yale Journal on Regulation, and the Minnesota Law Review. Before entering the academy, Shah was Associate General Counsel for the Department of Justice / Executive Office for Immigration Review, where she wrote immigration regulations, legislation, and national policies on behalf of the Attorney General, White House, and Congress. She is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal. and of the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Webpage
In addition to these five new full-time faculty members, BC Law welcomes to campus Jeffery Robinson as the Rappaport Distinguished Visiting Professor, and Cosmas Emeziem as the 2022-2024 Drinan Visiting Assistant Professor. Aziz Rana will also join Boston College, first as Provost’s Distinguished Fellow in 2023–2024, and then as the J. Donald Monan, SJ, Chair in Law and Government beginning in 2024.
Mitchell photograph: ©️John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, used with permission.