STANFORD, Calif., September 24, 2014 – Stanford Law School welcomed five new professors this fall to expand its curriculum in evolving areas of law at the intersection of technology, health policy, psychology, criminology and local government. The new additions bring the school’s total number of core faculty to 60, the highest in the school’s history.

The new faculty members are Michelle Wilde Anderson, a public law scholar and practitioner focused on state and local government; Robert MacCoun, a social psychologist and public policy analyst who has analyzed topics ranging from drug legalization to the military’s “Don’t’ Ask, Don’t Tell” policy; Michelle Mello, an expert in issues related to law, ethics and health policy; Lisa Ouellette, who specializes in intellectual property and patent law; and David Sklansky, an expert in criminal law and procedure and a former federal prosecutor.

“This is an incredible year for Stanford Law School. We welcome five exceptional faculty members, each of whom brings sophisticated knowledge to bear on some of the most pressing issues of our day,” said M. Elizabeth Magill, dean and Richard E. Lang Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. “To a person, they are great teachers and mentors as well. We could not be more pleased to welcome them.”

Local Government Expert

Michelle Wilde Anderson, who has been appointed a professor of law at Stanford Law School (SLS), brings expertise in urban policy and city planning. She has researched legal restructuring options and state oversight tools for cities and counties on the brink of financial collapse, and has written about the local governance of high poverty areas. She comes from Berkeley Law School, where she was an assistant professor of law.

Anderson previously worked as an environmental law fellow at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger and clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She holds a BA from Yale University, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a JD from Berkeley Law School.

Psychology and Behavioral Science Expertise

Robert MacCoun holds a joint appointment as a professor of law at Stanford Law School and as a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. During two quarters as a visiting professor at SLS in 2012, he said he was impressed by the “intensively interdisciplinary environment, with faculty engaged in empirical social science, the humanities, science and technology, and real-world problem solving.”

MacCoun is a renowned psychologist and behavioral scientist who has studied illicit drug use, drug policy, alternative dispute resolution, judgment and decision making, social influence, and bias in the use and interpretation of research evidence. His analyses of military unit cohesion were cited during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” debates about inclusion of gays and lesbians in the military.

Prior to his faculty appointment at SLS, he was a member of the faculties of Berkeley Law School and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Before that, he was a behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. He earned a BA at Kalamazoo College, and an MA and PhD at Michigan State.

Law and Health Policy Scholar

Michelle Mello, another new professor of law at SLS, holds a joint appointment as a professor of medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. She is a leading empirical health law scholar who has focused on understanding the effects of law and regulation on health care delivery and population health outcomes. She has written on topics including the medical malpractice system, medical errors and patient safety, research ethics and pharmaceuticals.

Before joining SLS, Mello was a member of the faculty and director of the Program in Law and Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She also was a key consultant to the National Program Office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s program in Public Health Law Research, studying disclosure and compensation of medical inquiries. She holds a BA from Stanford University; an M.Phil from Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar; a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a JD from Yale Law School. In 2013 she was elected to the Institute of Medicine, one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

Intellectual Property Expert

Lisa Ouellette has joined the SLS faculty as an assistant professor law specializing in intellectual property (IP) law, with emphasis on the economic effects of U.S. and international patent laws on innovation. Her strong background in physics and law enables her to bring practical experience and scientific expertise to analyses of IP issues, enhancing Stanford Law School’s reputation as a leader in law and technology policy.

Ouellette was a postdoctoral associate in law and a Thomson Reuters Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School prior to coming to SLS. She previously clerked for Judge John M. Walker, Jr., on the U.S. Court of Appeals and for Judge Timothy D. Dyk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She received a BA in physics from Swarthmore College, a PhD in physics from Cornell University and a JD from Yale Law School.

Criminal Law Expert

New SLS Professor of Law David Sklansky has expertise in criminal law that is grounded in his experience as an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, where he specialized in white-collar fraud prosecutions. In that role, he served as special counsel to the independent review panel appointed to investigate the scandal in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division. He has written extensively on topics that include the political science of policing, the regulation of jury deliberations, the application of the Fourth Amendment to surveillance technologies, and the relationship between criminal justice and immigration laws.

Sklansky was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School in 2011. Prior to coming to SLS, he was a member of the Boalt Law faculty and the UCLA School of Law faculty. He won campus-wide Distinguished Teaching Awards at both UCLA and U.C. Berkeley. He also practiced labor law at Bredhoff & Kaiser. He clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. He holds an AB from U.C. Berkeley and a JD from Harvard Law School.

About Stanford Law School

Stanford Law School is one of the nation’s leading institutions for legal scholarship and education. Its alumni are among the most influential decision makers in law, politics, business and high technology. Faculty members argue before the Supreme Court, testify before Congress, produce outstanding legal scholarship and empirical analysis and contribute regularly to the nation’s press as legal and policy experts. Stanford Law School has established a new model for legal education that provides rigorous interdisciplinary training, hands-on experience, global perspective and focus on public service, spearheading a movement for change.