Faculty & Research
The faculty of Duke Law School is made up of innovative and influential scholars who are also passionate, creative, and caring teachers.
Duke Law professors are leaders in a broad range of fields and highly regarded for their research, writing, and public service. A community of scholars, they are collegial, collaborative, and interdisciplinary, and many hold joint appointments or collaborate with colleagues in other Duke schools and departments.
They also care deeply about helping students learn, both in the classroom and beyond, devote substantial time to students' academic and professional development, and continue to celebrate successes and provide counsel through difficult times once students become practicing lawyers.
The deep and ongoing engagement of our faculty with the subjects that they study and teach and the students they mentor creates an intellectual excitement that is palpable in our classrooms and hallways and is the foundation for an atmosphere of collaboration and respect that defines our school culture.
Gina-Gail Fletcher, a scholar of corporate law, market regulation and manipulation, joins faculty
Gina-Gail S. Fletcher, an insightful and innovative scholar of complex financial instruments and market regulation, will join the Duke Law faculty on July 1 from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. She was a visiting professor of law at Duke in the fall 2019 semester, when she taught Business Associations and quickly became a student favorite. Fletcher joined the Maurer School of Law, where she teaches Corporations, Business Planning, and Financial Regulation, in 2014. In 2016 she received the Indiana University Trustees’ Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. Fletcher’s current research examines how various market innovations can be misused to manipulate the markets and the implications of such practices on the stability of the financial markets and on the ability of regulatory bodies to ensure market efficiency and integrity.
Legal historian of civil rights movement Timothy Lovelace joins Duke Law faculty
H. Timothy Lovelace, Jr., a noted legal historian of the civil rights movement, will join the Duke Law faculty in June from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where he is a professor of law. Lovelace, whose work examines how the civil rights movement in the United States helped to shape international human rights law, is the author of numerous articles and a forthcoming book, The World is on Our Side: The U.S. and the U.N. Race Convention (Cambridge), which examines how U.S. civil rights politics shaped the development of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. He served as Duke’s John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History in the spring 2019 semester, when he delivered the Robert R. Wilson Lecture, and will return to the faculty as the John Hope Franklin Research Scholar.
Farahany, Frakes, Sachs awarded distinguished professorships by Duke
Professors Nita Farahany JD/MA ’04, PhD ’06, Michael Frakes, and Stephen Sachs have been awarded distinguished professorships from Duke University. Their professorships will take effect on July 1.
Farahany, who will be the Robinson O. Everett Professor of Law, is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research and writing engage with the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on bioethics and neuroscience. She holds a secondary appointment in Duke’s Philosophy department and serves as founding director of Duke Science & Society and faculty chair for the Master's in Bioethics & Science Policy program.
Frakes, a law and economics scholar and legal empiricist whose work spans several fields, including patent law and health economics, received the A. Kenneth Pye Professorship. He holds a secondary appointment in Duke’s Economics department. Frakes’ research in health is largely focused on understanding how certain legal and financial incentives affect the decisions of physicians and other health care providers.
Sachs, a scholar of civil procedure, constitutional law, Anglo-American legal history, and conflict of laws, will hold the Colin W. Brown Professorship. Sachs' research spans a variety of substantive topics, focusing on the history of procedure and private law and its implications for current disputes. His research interests include federal jurisdiction, constitutional interpretation, sovereign immunity, and the legal status of corporations.