Lisa Bressman has been named Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of Vanderbilt Law School. As Associate Dean, Bressman will bear overall responsibility for the law school’s teaching and research missions, and work closely with Dean Chris Guthrie, Associate Dean Don Welch, Assistant Dean Donna Pavlick, and the faculty.
Bressman’s appointment was announced by Dean Guthrie. “I am delighted that Lisa Bressman has agreed to serve in this critical role,” Guthrie said. “Lisa is a gifted teacher and scholar and has played a prominent leadership role on the faculty. She has the academic values, interpersonal skills, and judgment necessary to flourish in this important position."
Bressman joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 1998 after working in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and the law firm of Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evans, and Figel in Washington, D.C. She earned her J.D. at the University of Chicago, and then clerked for now-Second Circuit Judge Jose A. Cabranes and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Bressman earned her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College.
At Vanderbilt, Bressman has taught Administrative Law, Constitutional Law I, Government and Religion, Problems at the Interface of Tort and Regulatory Law, and the first-year Regulatory State course.
She has also established herself as an innovative scholar in administrative law, and her influential work has been cited by the Supreme Court as well as lower courts. Her recent work, co-authored with Robert Thompson, discusses the future of independent agencies, particularly in the context of financial regulatory reform. She has also recently collaborated with Michael Vandenbergh and Amanda Carrico on a piece integrating the insights of behavioral research into regulatory analysis. Her scholarship has been published in the Columbia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Michigan Law Review, New York University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review and Yale Law Journal, among others. The Regulatory State, a casebook which Bressman has co-authored with Professors Ed Rubin and Kevin Stack, is slated for release in 2010.
“I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to the serve the Law School in this capacity," Bressman said. "We are moving in exciting directions on all fronts. To be a part of it is really tremendous. I am looking forward to working with the dean and the law school community.”