Anne Joseph O’Connell joined the law school faculty this fall, bringing with her a rich background as a scholar and teacher of administrative law and issues involving the federal bureaucracy.

New Faculty: Anne Joseph O'Connell
Professor Anne Joseph O’Connell

These topics, however, were far from her mind when she graduated from Williams College. “I had accepted an offer from M.I.T.’s doctoral program in operations research,” she says. “I had always been a math-science person.” • But a last-minute opportunity to study at Cambridge for two years gave her a chance for reflection. “I withdrew from M.I.T. and thought about other things I might want to do. I had always been an observer of American politics.” The two-year fellowship in England was the first time that O’Connell hadn’t worked while a student. “The fellowship barred me from taking a part-time job,” she explains. “I had always had a paying job since starting high school, including working many shifts in the dining hall’s dish room in college. Suddenly, I had free time.” So, in addition to studying the history and philosophy of science, she attended political science and economics classes. And that’s when she had her “aha” moment: “I knew that’s what I wanted to do.” Following the frist year of her fellowship, O’Connell cold-called people with interesting jobs in D.C. (from a leadership directory of the government and a think-tank guide) to find out how they got there. As a result of their advice, she entered a joint-degree program, earning a JD from Yale and a PhD from Harvard in political economy and government. During her six years of graduate school, O’Connell spent time working in government agencies. “Growing up in northern Virginia, I was always very interested in the D.C. world and believed in what the government could do,” she says. Her interest in government continued after she finished her law degree, leading her to work for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel the summer after law school—while she studied for the bar exam at night­ –and during the two years between her clerkship for Judge Stephen Williams of the D.C. Circuit and her clerkship for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She then entered academia in 2004 as an assistant professor at Berkeley Law. “I love the classroom,” she says, “And one of the best parts of Berkeley was the students. I taught law students and mentored undergraduates, many of whom were the first in their family to go to college.” O’Connell is equally committed to her scholarship, which covers a range of topics about federal agencies, including agency design, patterns of rulemaking, and leadership appointments. Currently, she is working on a book, Stand-Ins, on temporary leaders in government, business, and religion. In part, she wants to show their prevalence and their ability to lead effectively, belying the common caricature of acting leaders as powerless substitute teachers.

“These agency ‘actings’ are often extremely committed to their agency,” she says. “It would be a mistake to underestimate them.” O’Connell looks forward to continuing her scholarship at SLS and one highlight is that Dean M. Elizabeth Magill, who shares O’Connell’s research interests, has long been her mentor. “Liz was on the appointments committee at Virginia when I applied for my first teaching job. Even though I wasn’t hired, she has been an invaluable advisor throughout my career.” Indeed, Magill returns O’Connell’s admiration: “Anne is a groundbreaking scholar, exceptional teacher and mentor, and leading voice in scholarly and policy circles in her areas of focus,” she says.

In addition, O’Connell is excited to reconnect not only with graduate school colleagues who are teaching in other departments on campus, but also with at least one former “rival.” “I knew [Professor] Jenny Martinez in high school. We competed against each other frequently at forensics tournaments!” O’Connell is teaching Administrative Law this fall and will teach Constitutional Law in the winter. And when she is not teaching and writing, she is parenting her two children, ages 7 and 10, with husband Jamie O’Connell, who joins SLS as a lecturer in residence.