ATLANTA – After a nationwide search, four new assistant professors – Nirej Sekhon, Jessica Gabel, Anne Tucker Nees, and Caren Myers Morrison – joined the Georgia State University College of Law faculty and began teaching this fall.

“We have hired four extremely talented colleagues who will make significant contributions to our enterprise as teachers and scholars, and in advancing our mission as an engaged law school,” said College of Law Dean Steven J. Kaminshine. (Pictured from left to right are Morrison, Sekhon, Gabel and Nees.)

“They’ll each make a unique contribution,” said Ron Blasi, the Mark & Evelyn Trammell Professor in Tax and chair of the hiring committee. “It was a very successful search.”

Nirej Sekhon, assistant professor of law, comes to the law school after a three-year stint as a Stanford University law fellow.

On his decision to join Georgia State Law, Sekhon said: “There is a warmth, a curiosity, and an obvious commitment to teaching and creating space for scholarship, and that’s not conventional.”

Sekhon, who is teaching criminal procedure and criminal law this academic year, is a former associate with Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in San Francisco. While there, some of his work included class action lawsuits against not-for-profit hospitals for price gouging uninsured patients and the much publicized bracero workers class action case against the Mexico and the U.S. governments for compensation.

Sekhon’s area of research interest focuses on the intersection of criminal procedure, political theory and democratic culture, which stems partially from his work on the Racial Disparity Project in Seattle from 2002-2003. He represented defendants charged with felony narcotics offenses in a consolidated motion to dismiss based upon the Seattle Police Department’s selective enforcement of drug laws against racial minorities.

He interned with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Legal Aid Society of New York. He clerked for M. Margaret McKeown of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Diego, and Judge Carlos R. Moreno of the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Sekhon graduated from New York University of Law and earned his undergraduate in economics and government magna cum laude from Cornell University.

“Georgia State is appealing to me because it’s part of the urban fabric,” said Sekhon, who enjoys running in Piedmont Park when he’s not at the law school. “There is a really nice vibe here.”

Assistant Professor Jessica Gabel also comes from California, where she was a litigation associate for Covington & Burling for nearly four years. While in practice, she also taught bankruptcy, evidence and forensic evidence courses as an adjunct professor with the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Prior to moving to California, Gabel clerked for Judge Peter T. Fay with the 11^th Circuit and taught at the University of Miami Law School as an adjunct professor.

Originally from Kansas, she is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Central Florida with a degree in criminal justice and forensic science. She holds her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law, where she was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

For her first academic year with Georgia State Law, Gabel is teaching bankruptcy, forensic evidence, and is a co-director of the externship program.   “It’s a breath of fresh air to do bankruptcy, especially since I invest a lot of myself into wrongful conviction cases.  The two areas – bankruptcy and legal science – may seem like two ships passing in the night, but I get fired up about both, and injecting a little creativity into the process can really engage others,” said Gabel. 

About her career move to academia – she said, “I was more in a left-brained career, and my right brain needed oxygen. It’s the perfect move because I love teaching, writing, and working on things that really matter to me – wrongful convictions, bankruptcy reform, scientific standards in law.   I noticed that I was ‘squeezing in’ billable hours, so I decided it was time to own up to my passions and head back to school. “

If this is any indication, she’s soon to publish a paper on familial DNA investigations due out in The Hastings Women’s Law Journal in January.

Assistant Professor Caren Myers Morrison, who will teach criminal procedure I and II, began her career as freelance journalist writing features and music reviews for publications including The Guardian and Melody Maker in London, before turning to the law.

That’s a far cry from her five years spent as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. There she handled organized crime and racketeering, narcotics and general crimes cases.

“Listening skills and getting people to trust you is something that transfers well from journalism,” Morrison said. “In a bizarre way, getting a heavily guarded rock musician to talk about a drug addiction isn’t that different from getting information from a cooperating defendant."

Morrison comes to the College of Law from New York University School of Law, where she was an acting assistant professor for the past three years.

Morrison got her start in law clerking for Judge Eugene H. Nickerson with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and Judge John M. Walker Jr., with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Connecticut.

She graduated from Brown University with a degree in French and semiotics, received the equivalent of a graduate degree in journalism from The City University in London and earned her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law.

Anne Tucker Nees didn’t have to look too far for her career in academia to launch.

Nees joined Georgia State Law from the Georgia’s Business Court located at Fulton County Superior Court. She was an adjunct professor at Georgia State University Robinson College of Business last year, teaching the Legal Environment of Business, an undergraduate and graduate business law course. She clerked for both Business Court judges, Judge Alice D. Bonner and Judge Elizabeth E. Long, and simultaneously served as the Program Director for the Business Court, which she helped to launch; and published an article analyzing the role of specialized courts in modern civil jurisprudence and proposing a framework with which to evaluate the performance of business courts.

Prior to that, she was a corporate associate with Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker in Atlanta. She also served as a Governor’s Fellow for Indiana Gov. Frank O’Bannon, prior to going to law school.

A magna cum laude graduate of the Indiana University School of Law and summa cum laude graduate of Butler University, with political science and journalism degrees, Nees will teach corporations and unincorporated business associations for the academic year.

With the backing of a College of Law summer research grant, Nees is finishing an article on corporate director oversight liability in shareholder derivative lawsuits entitled “Who’s the Boss? Unmasking Oversight Liability within the Corporate Power Puzzle.”   

“There is an epic struggle in corporate law in issues of authority versus accountability,” Nees said.

She is active in the community, including as a mediator with the Justice Center of Atlanta, and as a board facilitator with the Restorative Board of the Atlanta Fulton County Juvenile Court.

Nees, a self-proclaimed National Public Radio junkie, became interested in teaching because “everytime I answered a question, I had another,” she said. “I wanted to work in a place where I could sit down and understand the questions."

Contact:
Renee DeGross Valdes
University Relations
404-413-1353
rvaldes@gsu.edu