PUBLISHED:May 03, 2017

Griffin, McAllaster, and Miller honored with distinguished professorships

Professors Lisa Kern Griffin, Carolyn McAllaster, and Darrell Miller have been honored with Distinguished Chair awards from Duke University. Their distinguished chairs will take effect on July 1.

Dean David F. Levi nominated the three for their respective chairs upon the recommendation of those members of the law faculty who already hold distinguished chairs. To qualify for a chair at Duke as a research scholar a faculty member must have amassed a substantial record of intellectual achievement and be one of the leading thinkers in his or her field. To qualify as a clinical professor, the faculty member must have made an outstanding contribution to clinical practice and teaching in a particular field of advocacy and service. The award of a chair recognizes past achievement and predicts future accomplishment. In addition to their signal achievements in scholarship and clinical practice, Levi noted that each of them is a superb institutional citizen.

Griffin receives inaugural Carroll-Simon Professorship in Law

Lisa Kern GriffinGriffin, who joined the Duke Law faculty in 2008, is a scholar of evidence theory, constitutional criminal procedure, and federal criminal justice policy. Her recent work concerns the status and significance of silence in criminal investigations, the relationship between constructing narratives and achieving factual accuracy in the courtroom, the criminalization of dishonesty in legal institutions and the political process, and the impact of popular culture about the criminal justice system. Prior to entering the legal academy, she spent five years as a federal prosecutor in Chicago.

An elected member of the American Law Institute, Griffin has testified before the United States Congress on proposed revisions to the fraud statutes and written recent amicus briefs to the Supreme Court. She clerked for Judge Dorothy Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Griffin, who came to Duke Law from UCLA, is known as an excellent teacher and mentor to students and was the recipient of the Duke Bar Association’s 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award. She graduated from Stanford Law School, where she served as president of the Stanford Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.

“Lisa Griffin is a thoughtful and productive scholar of criminal procedure.” said Levi. “Colleagues in her field praise the scope and originality of her research and scholarship, such as her exploration of the role of psychology and mental states in criminal liability, and her combination of deep institutional knowledge and incisive doctrinal and theoretical analysis that she brings to each project.”

Students admire Griffin for “her brilliance and professionalism,” Levi said. “She is a particularly strong role model for students considering careers in public service and is generous to students with her time and insights.”

Candace Carroll ’74 and Leonard Simon ’73 established the Carroll-Simon Professorship in Law in 2012 with matching funds from the Star Challenge Fund. The San Diego-based couple, who have enjoyed successful practices in appellate advocacy and complex litigation, respectively, are longtime supporters of the Law School and the university, directing much of their philanthropy towards financial aid through an endowed scholarship and summer public interest fellowships, as well as numerous other initiatives. They serve on the leadership committee for the Law School’s Duke Forward fundraising campaign, and both have taught at Duke Law as visiting professors. Carroll is also a long-time member of the Duke Law Board of Visitors.

“I am really very grateful to receive a distinguished professorship at Duke University and especially pleased that it is named for our graduates Candace Carroll and Leonard Simon,” said Griffin. “They have long been dedicated supporters of Duke Law students and the legal profession. It is an honor to be recognized in this way and humbling to be associated with the Carroll-Simon professorship and their legacy of integrity, generosity, and leadership.”

McAllaster named inaugural Colin W. Brown Clinical Professor of Law

Carolyn McAllasterMcAllaster is the founder of the Health Justice Clinic at Duke Law (formerly the AIDS/HIV and Cancer Legal Project), directs the HIV/AIDS Policy Clinic, and teaches a course on AIDS and the Law. A national leader in HIV/AIDS policy, McAllaster is also project director of the Southern HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative (SASI), an initiative of the Health Justice Clinic, which works with HIV advocates in the South and a Duke research team to develop data-driven policy solutions to ending HIV and AIDS in the region.

McAllaster established the AIDS Legal Project in 1996. The clinic allows students to develop practical skills while offering a range of services to those clients, including litigating complex disability benefits and discrimination claims. The clinic now also serves qualifying clients with legal matters stemming from cancer diagnoses. Duke Law now has 11 legal clinics.

In 2014, McAllaster received the American Bar Association’s 2014 Alexander D. Forger Award for Sustained Excellence in the Provision of HIV Legal Services and Advocacy. She was awarded a Positive Leadership Award by the National Association of People with AIDS in 2012.

McAllaster focused on civil rights and plaintiffs’ litigation in private practice before joining the Duke Law faculty in 1988. She was a founder and first president of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys.

“Carolyn McAllaster is renowned for the exceptional passion, dedication, and excellence she brings to her advocacy on behalf of people living with HIV and AIDS” said Levi. “Her contributions to HIV and AIDS law, policy, and practice are unparalleled — at Duke, in Durham, in the Southeast, and internationally.

“Professor McAllaster is also a highly effective teacher and mentor who immerses students in both the big policy questions their clients face and the necessity of compassionately addressing their individual legal needs,” Levi said.

The Colin W. Brown Clinical Professorship was endowed in 2016 by JM Family Enterprises, with matching funds from The Duke Endowment, as a tribute to Brown ’74, the president and chief executive officer of the Deerfield, Fla.-based company. Brown, a member of the Duke Law Board of Visitors and longtime scholarship benefactor at Duke Law, has been recognized for his leadership of the family-owned business, one of the largest private companies in the United States. It has been ranked on Fortune magazine’s list of “Best Companies to Work For” for more than 18 years.

“I am thrilled to be named the first Colin W. Brown Clinical Professor of Law,” said McAllaster. “I very much appreciate Colin Brown’s generous support of Duke Law School and am honored to have the work of the Duke Law School Clinical Program recognized in this way.”

Miller receives Melvin G. Shimm Professorship

Darrell A. H. Miller Miller writes and teaches in the areas of civil rights, constitutional law, civil procedure, state and local government law, and legal history. He has emerged as one of the leading scholars of the Second Amendment, and his scholarship on the Second and Thirteenth Amendments has been published in leading law reviews and cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Courts of Appeals, the United States District Courts, and in congressional testimony and legal briefs. Constitutional equality is another emerging focus of study for Miller.

At Duke Law, Miller teaches Civil Procedure, Civil Rights Litigation, State and Local Government Law, and a seminar on the Second Amendment.

Before coming to Duke in 2013, Miller was a member of the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where he twice received the Goldman Award for Excellence in Teaching. Prior to joining the academy, he practiced complex and appellate litigation in Columbus, Ohio. He is a former clerk to Chief Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Miller graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School and served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In addition to his law degree, Miller holds degrees from Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar, and from Anderson University.

“Darrell Miller is a thoughtful constitutional law and civil procedure scholar. He has the ability to think about legal problems from a broad theoretical perspective while at the same time bringing his experience to bear on how the system will actually operate under different approaches,” Levi said. “I had the pleasure of teaching and working with Professor Miller last year as part of our work with the North Carolina Commission on the Administration of Law and Justice and found him to be a most thoughtful, dedicated, and engaged scholar, law reformer and teacher.”

The Shimm Professorship was previously held by David Lange, who took emeritus status in 2016. Shimm, who died in 2005, was a member of the Duke Law faculty for 43 years.

“I’m honored to receive the Melvin G. Shimm Distinguished Professorship at Duke Law School and grateful to the family, friends, students and supporters of Professor Shimm who made this endowed chair possible,” said Miller. “During his long career at Duke, Melvin Shimm was an indefatigable scholar, editor, teacher, and institution-builder. He was a man to take risks and to work for what he thought was right. As I take up his chair, I think of my late father, a factory worker with a high school education, and how he would have reacted to news of this award. I suspect Dad would have taken me aside, and with pride and admonition, said: ‘Remember, Son, that chair isn’t meant for sittin’.”