PUBLISHED:April 08, 2016

Duke Law announces new leaders of public interest, externship programs

Stella Boswell Assistant Dean Stella Boswell

Two lawyers with extensive experience in community service and legal education will take on new positions helping enhance and expand Duke Law School’s public interest program.

Stella A. Boswell T’90, who has advised students interested in careers in government and public interest since 2008, has been named assistant dean for Public Interest and Career Development. Boswell will lead an expanded Office of Public Interest & Pro Bono, which will now provide career counseling, resources, educational programming, and networking events for students interested in government and public interest summer positions and careers as well as facilitating pro bono and public interest activities for students, faculty, and staff. Working with Boswell will be Kim Burrucker, director of Public Interest and Pro Bono, who manages the Law School’s pro bono programs, and Emily Sharples, manager, Office of Public Interest & Pro Bono.

Boswell joined the staff of the Career and Professional Development Center as a career counselor in 2004. She became the director and assistant dean of the Career Center’s Office of Public Interest Advising when it was launched in 2013, and will continue in that role as well.

Prior to joining Duke Law, Boswell was legal affairs counsel for North Carolina Advocates for Justice and a trial and appellate litigator in Durham. She served as president of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys and is a long-time board member and executive committee member for the NC Legal Education Assistance Foundation, a law school loan repayment organization for public interest attorneys in North Carolina. Before earning her law degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, she served as director of advocacy and professional training at the Orange/Durham Coalition for Battered Women.

“This is a really exciting opportunity to try to enhance the visibility of public interest and pro bono at Duke,” said Boswell. “I went to law school to be a public interest lawyer, that was my focus. I have loved working with the students on their job searches in these areas. They go on to do so many amazing things, and I live vicariously off of watching their accomplishments. This is an opportunity for me to play a bigger role in that and other ways Duke Law promotes public interest and pro bono efforts.”

Anne Gordon will join Duke Law’s clinical faculty in a new position, director of externships. Duke’s externship program enables students to receive academic credit for gaining legal experience beyond that available in the classroom setting. Externs work under the supervision of a licensed attorney in a governmental or non-profit setting and complete bi-weekly reflection papers. Beginning in the fall semester, Gordon will work with students interested in individual externships working locally as well as integrated externships, faculty-taught courses that incorporate a shared-theme externship experience with a complementing seminar, such as the Duke in D.C. program and the Federal Public Defender’s Office externship.

Since November, Gordon has been a distinguished visiting professor at Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey in Puebla, Mexico, teaching professional skills and comparative law. She previously worked at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she led the Appellate Advocacy Program, coordinating internal and external advocacy skills competitions and coaching the moot court team. She also served as a senior research fellow at the California Constitution Center and taught classes in advocacy. Prior to Berkeley, Gordon held attorney positions with the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the Fifth and Sixth District Appellate Projects, and the Habeas Corpus Resource Center. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for Hon. Boyce F. Martin, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

“I am thrilled to be joining Duke, said Gordon. I look forward to continuing the efforts to integrate professional skills into the curriculum and to supporting the commitment to public interest lawyering through the externship program.

“Service to the community is a core value of Duke Law School and the legal profession, and an expectation of every one of our students,” said Dean David F. Levi. “Both Stella and Anne have impressive track records of helping students achieve their goals. I look forward to working with them to increase public interest opportunities and support for the entire Duke Law community.”