Seven New Faculty Members Join Brooklyn Law School

Seven new faculty members have joined Brooklyn Law School, bringing an impressive range of scholarly and teaching expertise across diverse areas of the law and legal education. They include Professor Alexis Hoag, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, who comes to Brooklyn Law from Columbia Law School, where she was the inaugural practitioner-in-residence at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil & Political Rights, and corporate governance expert Andrew Jennings, who previously was lecturer in law and teaching fellow for the Corporate Governance & Practice program at Stanford Law School. Faiza Sayed, who has served as visiting professor, joins the faculty as assistant professor of law and director of the Safe Harbor Project.

The Law School’s Academic Success program welcomes Professor Cherie Brown, who will serve as assistant professor of academic success. Professors Meg Holzer, Irene Ten-Cate, and Danielle Tully have joined the Law School’s nationally recognized legal writing program as assistant professors of legal writing.

“We are thrilled to welcome our new faculty members this fall,” said Dean Michael T. Cahill. “These brilliant and talented additions to our faculty will build on, and carry forward, the existing strengths of our curriculum, scholarship, and academic centers. We are fortunate to have them joining us.”

Alexis Hoag

Professor Alexis Hoag teaches and writes in criminal law and procedure, evidence, and carceral abolition. Her recent scholarship examines the ways in which policies, doctrines, and practices within the criminal legal system erode people’s constitutional rights and perpetuate racial subordination. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the New York University Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Harvard Law Review Blog, and other journals. She serves on the editorial board of the Amicus Journal and co-chairs the capital punishment committee of the New York City Bar Association. A frequent legal contributor for CBSNews, Professor Hoag regularly provides on-air and in print analysis for MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, and other media outlets.

Prior to joining the Law School, Professor Hoag served as the inaugural practitioner-in-residence at the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil & Political Rights at Columbia University, and as a lecturer at Columbia Law School. She spent more than a decade as a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, primarily representing capitally convicted clients in federal post-conviction proceedings, with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and the Office of the Federal Public Defender. She graduated from Yale University and NYU School of Law, where she was a Derrick Bell Public Interest Scholar. She served as a law clerk for Judge John T. Nixon of the United States District Court.

Andrew Jennings

Professor Andrew Jennings teaches corporate law and securities regulation. His research interests focus on corporate governance and compliance, securities regulation, and white-collar crime.

Jennings was previously a lecturer in law and the teaching fellow for the Corporate Governance & Practice program at Stanford Law School and a scholar in residence at Duke Law School. He was also a law clerk to the Hon. Helene N. White of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He previously practiced law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he handled mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance matters, and at Sullivan & Cromwell, where he practiced in criminal defense and investigations and civil litigation. In a recent article, “Follow-Up Enforcement,” 70 Duke Law Journal 1569 (2021), Jennings looks at how enforcement agencies reduce corporate penalties for promises of reform.

He holds degrees from Hampden-Sydney College and Duke University School of Law, where he concurrently earned a master’s degree in economics while serving as executive editor of Duke Law Journal.

Jennings is the creator and host of the Business Scholarship Podcast, where he interviews business scholars about their recent research. In addition to legal scholars, he also interviews experts in accounting, business, and other related fields.

Faiza W. Sayed

Professor Faiza W. Sayed is the Director of the Safe Harbor Clinic and teaches courses in refugee law. Students in the Safe Harbor Clinic represent vulnerable immigrant populations in humanitarian immigration cases and engage in community empowerment projects to effect broader immigration reform.

Sayed’s scholarship focuses on how immigration law intersects with other areas, including criminal and national security law, and explores the ways in which the law can protect the rights of vulnerable immigrant populations, while still achieving other desired immigration policy outcomes. Her most recent article, “Terrorism and the Inherent Right to Self-Defense in Immigration Law,” was published in the California Law Review.

Sayed began her academic career as a Clinical Teaching Fellow and Supervising Attorney at the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown University Law Center, where she supervised and taught law students representing asylum seekers. Prior to her academic career, Sayed represented immigrants in a variety of immigration matters as a staff attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow at Sanctuary for Families, and a Kirkland & Ellis New York City Public Service Fellow at Her Justice. Professor Sayed also served as a Refugee Officer for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and as law clerk for the Hon. Kimba M. Wood on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Cherie Brown

Working closely with Brooklyn Law School’s Academic Success team, Professor Cherie N. Brown teaches courses and workshops designed to sharpen students’ legal analytical skills, enhance students’ academic experience, and increase students’ preparedness for the bar examination as well as real world practice.

Prior to joining the Academic Success team as a fulltime member, Brown served as a Small Group Instructor for the Academic Success Program from September 2019–April 2020, and an Adjunct Professor for the Academic Success Program from August 2020–June 2021.

Previously, Brown was an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the New York City Office of the Corporation Counsel where she was assigned to the Special Federal Litigation Division (2015-2018) and Family Court Division (2018-2021).  As a member of the Special Federal Litigation Division, she represented the City of New York and its employees and agencies in federal Section 1983 actions. As a member of the Family Court Division, Brown represented the City of New York in juvenile delinquency proceedings. She also served as a fellow for the New York City Police Department.

Meg Holzer

Professor Meg Holzer joined the Law School writing faculty after serving as a visiting professor since 2017. She also teaches in the Law School’s externship program and academic success program. Her scholarship interests relate to legal education pedagogy with a focus on equity and accessibility for all learners. Holzer served on the faculty support committee for the pilot year of the Law School’s new Student Adviser and Mentorship Program (SAMP), a role she will continue in the 2021-2022 academic year.

Before joining the Law School faculty, Holzer was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Legal Writing at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, where she has also taught in Hofstra’s joint Masters/LL.M. Health Law program. Prior to starting her teaching career, she practiced in both the private and non-profit sectors, first as a litigation associate at Sullivan & Cromwell and then as a staff attorney in the Public Policy Litigation & Law Department at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She is a graduate of Yale College and New York University School of Law.

Irene Ten Cate

Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School’s legal writing faculty, Professor Irene Ten Cate taught legal writing at the University of Houston Law Center and Columbia Law School and courses in civil procedure and business organizations at Marquette University Law School.

Ten Cate’s research focuses on features of, and values promoted by, adjudication in court systems and in international arbitration. More recently, her research interests have expanded into legal reasoning, effective teaching of legal writing, and the legal academy. She published several articles and blog posts, presented at numerous conferences, and served as an external reviewer for peer-reviewed journals. Ten Cate serves on the Editorial Board of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, where she is one of two Essay Editors. She also serves on the Editorial Board of the Legal Writing Institute’s Monograph Series.

The recipient of a J.D. from Columbia Law School and an LL.B. degree from the University of Amsterdam, Ten Cate practiced law in New York City for almost a decade. She was most recently an associate at Jenner & Block, where she specialized in commercial litigation and international arbitration and maintained an active pro bono practice with a focus on asylum law. Earlier in her career, she practiced as a transactional attorney in Brussels and interned with the ICC Court of International Arbitration in Paris.

Danielle Tully

Professor Danielle Tully joined the Brooklyn Law School faculty in 2021 as an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing. She previously taught at Northeastern University School of Law and Suffolk University School of Law. In addition, she was a clinical teaching fellow in the Civil Rights and Constitutional Litigation Clinic at Seton Hall. Her scholarship focuses on assessment, pedagogy, and legal education reform. Her recent article, “The Cultural (Re)Turn: The Case for Teaching Culturally Responsive Lawyering,” 16 Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 201 (2020), was selected for the Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research Section’s Newer Scholars’ Showcase at the 2021 meeting of the American Association of Law Schools.

Before entering law teaching, Tully worked in public interest law both domestically and internationally. She also served as a law clerk for the Hon. D. Brock Hornby, U.S. District Judge for the District of Maine. Tully received her B.A. in Development Studies from Brown University, her M.A. in Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and her J.D. from Boston College Law School.

“As we embark upon the third year of our innovative seven-credit 1L writing curriculum, we are so lucky and honored to have these experienced and thoughtful educators joining our veteran team of legal writing faculty,” said Professor Heidi K. Brown, Director of the Legal Writing Program. “I also am incredibly proud and excited that Professor Carrie Teitcher is taking over as Acting Director of our writing program while I am on sabbatical for the 2021–2022 academic year. I can’t think of anyone more dedicated to instilling a love and appreciation of the art of legal writing in our students.”