Advisory Board
VICE CHANCELLOR J. TRAVIS LASTER
The Honorable J. Travis Laster was sworn in as Vice Chancellor of the Court of Chancery on October 9, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he was one of the founding partners of Abrams & Laster LLP, a corporate law boutique specializing in high stakes litigation involving Delaware corporations and other business entities, and advising on transactional matters carrying a significant risk of litigation. Before forming Abrams & Laster, he was a director in the Corporate Department of Richards, Layton & Finger P.A. Before joining Richards Layton & Finger, he clerked for the Honorable Jane R. Roth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Vice Chancellor Laster received his A.B summa cum laude from Princeton University and his J.D. and M.A. from the University of Virginia, where he served on the Virginia Law Review, was a member of the Order of the Coif, and received the Law School Alumni Association Award for Academic Excellence for having the best academic record in his graduating class. He is a member of the American Bar Association and Delaware State Bar Association and is active in the American Inns of Court.
JADE CRAIG
Jade Craig is an Assistant Professor of Law at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He will be joining the faculty at the University of Mississippi School of Law in the fall of 2024. He has served as a faculty advisor for Lambda Law Students and the Nova Law Review. Professor Craig’s research interests include fair housing law, urban governance, and the role of public finance in America’s racial wealth gap. He also has served as co-chair of the annual conference for the American Bar Association’s Forum on Affordable Housing and Community Development in 2023 and 2024.
Professor Craig earned a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Race & Law. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the late Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Detroit and to Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in Jackson. He was appointed Special Policy Advisor to HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity during the Obama Administration and served in that role before starting his career in private practice and in law teaching.
JOHN COOK
John Cook is an assistant professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. He teaches Research, Writing & Analysis and Professional Responsibility. Professor Cook received his B.A. from Yale University, his M.Sc. from Oxford University, and his J.D. from Duke University School of Law.
Before joining the Bowen faculty, Professor Cook taught for two years as a Legal Method and Communication Fellow at Elon University School of Law and for two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the University of North Dakota School of Law. He also taught in an adjunct capacity at both Charlotte School of Law and Northern Marianas College.
Professor Cook served as a law clerk in the Rhode Island Trial Court Law Clerk Department and as a law clerk for Associate Justice Alexandro Castro of the Supreme Court of the Northern Mariana Islands, Judge Frank Whitney of the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Judge Landya McCafferty of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, and Judge Ralph Erickson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He has also worked as an Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division of the Office of the Attorney General of the Northern Mariana Islands and twice served as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Archivist at Northern Marianas College.
STEVE LEBEN
Steve Leben is the Douglas R. Stripp Missouri Distinguished Professor of Law at University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Leben first joined the faculty in 2020 as a visiting professor after serving for 27 years as a Kansas judge.
Leben’s research interest is procedural justice, and he has trained judges around the United States on how to improve perceptions of fairness in court proceedings. The National Center for State Courts gave him its highest award, the Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, in 2014 in recognition of that work. He has recently published articles in the Kansas Law Review (on procedural justice on appeal) and the Drake Law Review (on procedural justice in a pandemic). Judge Leben is an elected member of the American Law Institute and an officer of the American Bar Association’s Judicial Division. At UMKC Law, he teaches Criminal Law, Appellate Advocacy, Legislation, and Professional Responsibility.
EMILY GUBIN
Emily Gubin is a senior at Williams College majoring in Political Economy. She is a member of the Williams Moot Court team and the President and Founder of the Social Impact and Legal Advocacy Association (SILA), a student organization that bridges the gap between today’s elected leaders and changemakers, and tomorrow’s law and policy innovators. She also advises startups focusing on transportation justice and financial literacy. Emily has worked with LAP since 2022 as an intern, fellow, and now advisory board member.
RAMON J. RYAN
Ramon J. Ryan currently serves as a judicial law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Prior to clerking, Ramon worked for a year and a half as an Associate at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. After his clerkship, Ramon will join Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's Supreme Court and Appellate practice group in D.C.
Ramon graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law. He now serves as a member of the Law School's Board of Advisors. During law school, he published "The Fault in Our Stars: Challenging the FCC’s Treatment of Commercial Satellites as Categorically Excluded from Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act," which received coverage in publications such as Scientific American and Business Insider and prompted the U.S. Senate to instruct the Government Accountability Office to investigate the FCC's review of commercial satellite projects.
As a first-generation college student who is both queer and Black, Ramon is deeply invested in seeing more diverse law students and lawyers enter clerkships, while ensuring the chambers they join are safe and supportive work environments.
JACKIE GARDINA
Jackie Gardina is currently the Dean and Chief Academic Officer at the Santa Barbara and Ventura Colleges of Law. Through her efforts, The Santa Barbara and Ventura Colleges of Law became the first accredited law school in California to have a hybrid JD program with a distinct curriculum designed to prepare students for 21st century law practice. She is currently enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s Executive Ed.D in Higher Education Management where she will focus her dissertation on understanding the optimal environment to develop and sustain innovative higher education.
Before joining the Colleges of Law in 2016, Dean Gardina was a Professor of Law at Vermont Law School where she also served as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. Since arriving in California, Dean Gardina continues to play an active role in the broader legal education community. She was a member of the California Attorney Practice Analysis Working Group (CAPA). CAPA was responsible for the State Bar of California’s job analysis study for the legal profession in California. She is the Chair of the State Bar Committee for Accredited and Registered Law Schools. In her first year as Chair, the Committee drafted a new set of accreditation rules with a focus on best practices in accreditation and legal education into the rules.
RENEE KNAKE JEFFERSON
Professor Renee Knake Jefferson is a Professor of Law and holds the Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics at the University of Houston Law Center. An award-winning scholar, she is the author of five books and more than 30 academic articles in leading journals such as Fordham Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Illinois Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, Washington & Lee Law Review, Washington Law Review, and Yale Law Journal Forum. These works include Judicial Ethics in the #MeToo World. Her book, Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court, has been called “an excellent contribution” by the Library Journal and praised in numerous reviews. Jefferson’s work is frequently cited in range of media including the Associated Press, Bloomberg Law, CNN, the Houston Chronicle, National Public Radio, MSNBC, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
Professor Jefferson often is called upon to consult and testify as an expert on lawyer and judicial ethics matters, including appearances before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, the federal judiciary to address sexual harassment and workplace misconduct, and the Supreme Court of Texas. She serves as a subject matter expert for the National Conference of Bar Examiners on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, and is a member of the West Academic Law School Advisory Board. In 2015, Professor Jefferson was a scholar-in-residence at Stanford Law School's Center on the Legal Profession and a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation. In 2019, she held the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia, where she conducted research for her book, Law Democratized: A Blueprint for Solving the Justice Crisis.
Professor Jefferson currently sits on the board of directors for the International Association of Legal Ethics and the board of trustees for Michigan State University. She was elected to the American Law Institute in 2017. She is a past-chair for the Association of American Law Schools Section on Professional Responsibility. She was appointed as a reporter for the American Bar Association Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services from 2014-16.
Before her academic career, Professor Jefferson practiced law at Mayer Brown in Chicago and Hunton & Williams in Richmond. She also worked as an Assistant City Attorney for Charlottesville, Virginia. She earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.
JUDGE STEPHEN DILLARD
Presiding Judge Stephen Louis A. Dillard was appointed as the 73rd judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia on November 1, 2010, by Governor Sonny Perdue. Prior to his appointment, Judge Dillard was in private practice with James, Bates, Pope & Spivey, serving as chairman of the firm's appellate practice group; served as law clerk to Judge Daniel A. Manion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; and worked as an associate for Stone & Baxter. In 2012 and 2018, he was elected to serve full six-year terms on the Court of Appeals, and he is running unopposed for another six-year term in 2024. On July 1, 2017, Judge Dillard was sworn in as the 30th Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for a two-year term, which ended on June 30, 2019. He currently serves as the presiding judge of the Court’s Fourth Division. Judge Dillard is a proud graduate of Samford University, the Mississippi College School of Law (with honors), and is currently working toward a L.L.M. degree in Judicial Studies at Duke University Law School. Most importantly, he has been married to his college sweetheart, the former Krista McDaniel, for thirty years. They have three children and are parishioners at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Macon, Georgia.
ALBERT TAWIL
Albert Tawil is the Founder & CEO of Lateral Hub, an online job board for laterals and judicial clerks to easily find and apply to jobs at top-tier law firms (lateralhub.com), and Summer Associate Hub, a resource and content hub for law students to learn about BigLaw practice areas and prepare for the summer recruiting process through engagement with firms (summerassociatehub.com).
After graduating from NYU School of Law in 2017, Albert worked as an IP/technology transactions associate at Cleary Gottlieb and Fenwick & West. Albert launched Lateral Hub in 2022 based on his experience lateraling and helping others. Since its launch, Lateral Hub has become a go-to resource for judicial clerks looking for a post-clerkship job at a top-tier firm.
Albert writes often on LinkedIn about legal recruiting and law firm life and has been published in Law360.
HEATHER BORLASE
Heather Borlase is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of VII & IX, A Professional Law Corporation. She investigates and litigates civil rights matters, specializing in employment law and Title IX, and represents university students and employees in Title IX administrative proceedings. Heather is also the founder of Hold the Line Consulting, LLC, which supports organizations in achieving their equity, performance, and compliance goals. Heather has over thirty years of experience working with victims/survivors of interpersonal and sexual violence, discrimination, harassment and retaliation in both the criminal and civil justice systems. She has advised private and public employers on a wide range of employment law issues and served as adjunct faculty for Golden Gate University School of Law and the University of San Francisco, where she taught Employment Law and Employment Discrimination.
Heather earned a B.A. in Justice from American University, a Master of Forensic Sciences from George Washington University, and a J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law.
YVETTE PAPPOE
Professor Yvette N. A. Pappoe is an accomplished lawyer, legal scholar, law professor, and entrepreneur. Her research focuses primarily on the intersections of race and gender and how the legal system tackles those complexities in administering justice. Yvette’s scholarship examines the ways in which historically disadvantaged minority groups, particularly Black women, are impacted by existing social and legal antidiscrimination laws, theories, and jurisprudence.
Currently, she teaches Torts, CRT, and Professional Responsibility.
Yvette is licensed to practice in Maryland and D.C.
In addition to her legal career, Yvette is a serial entrepreneur. She is the Co-Founder and Operations Manager at Decorelle, a luxury interior design firm offering services in the DC, MD, and VA areas. She also serves as Managing Partner of SyTel Consult Ghana Limited, a telecommunication company in Accra, Ghana. Finally, she is the CEO of Sureway Enterprises, LLC, an e-commerce marketplace created to bridge the gap between people in the diaspora and their families in Ghana.
JOSE URTEAGA
Jose Urteaga currently serves as a judicial law clerk on a federal district court. Prior to clerking, Jose was a first-year associate at Morrison & Foerster, LLP in D.C.
Jose graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, where he served on the Editorial Board for the Michigan Law Review. He also co-authored a law review Note titled “Is there Anything Left in the Fight Against Partisan Gerrymandering? Congressional Redistricting Commissions and the “Independent State Legislature Theory.”
Several key pieces of Jose’s identity inform how he sees the world. Jose is the son of Mexican immigrants with less than a high school education. He is also a survivor of domestic violence. And he is a community college graduate, during which he worked full time.
MAYA MARKOVICH
Maya Markovich currently serves as justice tech executive in residence at Village Capital and executive director at the nonprofit Justice Technology Association. She also advises multiple high-growth startups and consults on legal department and law firm innovation and transformation initiatives, building future-proof methodologies and tech to advance the legal industry via achievable, sustainable and scalable design and implementation.
Maya’s unique background spans VC, law, behavioral science, and change design. For nearly 6 years Maya spearheaded the launch and expansion of industry-first Nextlaw Labs/Nextlaw Ventures at Dentons, the world's largest firm, delivering next-generation technology, process client and business growth services across the globe. Maya is a graduate of Stanford University and UC Law SF.
JUDGE DOUGLAS R. M. NAZARIAN
Judge Douglas R. M. Nazarian has served on the Appellate Court of Maryland since January 2013. He joined the Court after five years at the Maryland Public Service Commission and fifteen years as a litigator in law firms in Washington and Baltimore. Judge Nazarian is a graduate of Yale College and Duke Law School. He clerked for Judge James B. Loken of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Judge Nazarian also serves as a Senior Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
AMIR WRIGHT
Amir Wright is a recent Stanford Law graduate who specializes in voting rights, housing accessibility, and community advocacy. He's spent his career advancing marginalized interests, such as serving on the board of the Associated Students of the University of California, where he spearheaded voter education initiatives, and as a Commissioner on the City of Berkeley's Housing Advisory Commission, where he played a pivotal role in passing landmark housing legislation. He's drawn state legislative maps to combat gerrymandering with the Stanford Public Interest Redistricting Project, conducted critical research with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and spent time at the highest levels of federal government with the Senate Judiciary Committee and White House Counsel's Office. Amir currently works on the Harris-Walz Campaign with the Voter Protection team.
Amir earned his JD from Stanford Law School and his BA in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Amir clerked in Columbus, OH for the Honorable Chief Judge Algenon L. Marbley at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Outside of work, he can be found on a bike, playing golf, scuba diving, planning his next trip, or pursuing his Private Pilot's License.