Pace Law School Names Professor Michael B. Mushlin 
as the New James D. Hopkins Professor of Law  

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Pace Law School is proud to announce that Professor Michael B. Mushlin has been named the 2005-2006 The James D. Hopkins Chair in Law. This endowed Chair was established with contributions from alumni/ae of the School of Law and members of the legal community to honor Judge James D. Hopkins in his lifetime and now honors his memory. A distinguished member of the faculty holds the title of James D. Hopkins Professor of Law for a two-year term in recognition of outstanding scholarship and teaching. The Hopkins Lecture is delivered by the honoree during his term as Hopkins Chair.

Professor Mushlin joined the Pace Faculty in 1984. He teaches Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts and Prisoners’ Rights. Previously, Professor Mushlin was the Charles A. Frueauff Research Professor of Law and also served for seven years as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He was named the Outstanding Professor of the Year by Pace Law Students in 1994. 

For fifteen years prior to entering academia Professor Mushlin practiced law as Staff Counsel at a legal services office in Harlem, Staff Attorney and Project Director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society and Associate Director of the Children’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Professor Mushlin is one of the leading prisoners’ rights experts in the country. His three volume treatise entitled "Rights of Prisoners (3d Ed Thomson/West) is the foremost text on this topic. Scholars, courts, attorneys, prison administrators and prisoners rely on it as a primary source for understanding this complex body of law. The work has received recognition from persons on all sides of the spectrum. Carl Reynolds, the General Counsel of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the largest prison system in the nation, wrote that the work "occupies prized real estate on my desk . . ." John Boston, Project Director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society opined that the book is "[c]urrent, comprehensive and clear . . . it is the leading work in the field." William C. Collins, Co-Editor of the Correctional Law Reporter summarized these views when he wrote that the work is "[t]he most comprehensive treatise on Correctional law." 

As Staff Attorney and Project Director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society, Professor Mushlin litigated major cases in federal court establishing the constitutional rights of inmates to decent and humane treatment. He was co-counsel on the landmark litigation involving the jails in New York City, including Manhattan’s notorious House of Detention for Men ("the Tombs"). While at the ACLU he was lead counsel in G.L. v. Zumwalt, the first federal case in the nation in which a state acknowledged its constitutional obligation to protect foster children from harm while in custody and pledged to take steps to lessen the risk of injury to those vulnerable children. 

Professor Mushlin was appointed to the American Bar Association Task Force on the Legal Status of Prisoners, and is involved in a two-year project to draft standards governing the treatment of prisons for approval by the American Bar Association. 

Professor Mushlin is also currently serving as a co-organizer of conference to be held in April 2006 at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin Texas. The conference entitled "Open Closed Doors: What Constitutes Effective Prison Oversight?" is a follow up to a successful prison reform conference organized by Professor Mushlin and held at Pace Law School in 2003 entitled "Prison Reform Revisited: the Unfinished Agenda." The University of Texas/Pace Conference will bring together some of the world’s leading experts to discuss a variety of methods for ensuring transparency and accountability in America’s prison operations. 

Professor Mushlin has lectured widely on legal topics before a variety of audiences, including being a featured speaker at the David E. Rogers Health Policy Colloquium at the Cornell Medical School. He lectures regularly on evidence topics for the Office of Court Administration of the State of New York as well as on evidence and other subjects at other venues including Pace CLE, the League of Women Voters, local bar associations, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Professor Muslin is an author of a number of articles on a range of subjects including evidence, civil procedure, child welfare, and prisoners’ rights. 

Professor Mushlin received a B.A. degree at Vanderbilt University and a J.D. cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law. 

Founded in 1976, Pace Law School is a New York Law School with a suburban campus in White Plains, NY, 20 miles north of New York City. Part of Pace University, the school offers the JD program for full-time and part-time day and evening students. Its postgraduate program includes the LLM and SJD degrees in Environmental Law and an LLM in Comparative Legal Studies. Pace has one of the nation's top-rated Environmental Law programs and its Clinical Education program also is nationally ranked, offering clinics in domestic violence prosecution, environmental law, securities arbitration, criminal justice and disability rights. www.law.pace.edu 

Pace is a comprehensive, independent university with campuses in New York City, Pleasantville and White Plains, NY, and a Hudson Valley Center at Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, NY. More than 14,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lubin School of Business, School of Computer Science and Information Systems, School of Education, Lienhard School of Nursing and Pace Law School. www.pace.edu