WNEC Law- Faculty S-Z

School of Law Faculty

Sudha Setty
Associate Professor of Law
B.A., Stanford University,
J.D., Columbia Law School

Prior to joining the faculty in 2006, Professor Setty was a litigator with the New York firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. At Davis Polk, Professor Setty focused on cases in the areas of contracts, antitrust, and securities regulation. Her pro bono practice included work in the areas of prisoners' constitutional rights and state constitutional challenges to immigration-related ballot initiatives. Professor Setty graduated from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar and on the editorial board of the Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems. Professor Setty's research is in the area of comparative law and politics, and her most recent scholarly publications include "Litigating Secrets: Comparative Perspectives on the State Secrets Privilege," (forthcoming in the Brooklyn Law Review); "No More Secret Laws: How Disclosure of Executive Branch Legal Policy Doesn't Let the Terrorists Win," 57 Kansas Law Review 579 (2009); and "The President's Question Time: Power, Information and the Executive Credibility Gap," 17 Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 247 (2008).

Email: ssetty@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-782-1431
Office: 208

Giovanna Shay
Assistant Professor of Law
B.A., Pomona College,
M. Phil., Cambridge University,
J.D., Yale Law School

Giovanna Shay writes and teaches about criminal law and the legal regimes regulating mass incarceration. Prior to joining the faculty in 2007, Professor Shay was a Robert M. Cover Clinical Teaching Fellow at Yale Law School. She also served as a Staff Attorney at the Public Defender Service for D.C., and was a Soros Justice Fellow at the ACLU National Prison Project. From 1997-98, she served as a law clerk at the Connecticut Supreme Court. Her recent scholarship includes, What We Can Learn About Appeals From Mr. Tillman’s Case, 77 Univ. of Cincinnati Law Review ___ (forthcoming 2009); Preserving the Rule of Law in America’s Jails and Prisons, 11 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 139 (2008) (with Margo Schlanger); and Initiating a New Constitutional Dialogue, 50 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. ___ (2008) (with Christopher Lasch).

Email: gshay@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-796-2279
Office: 203

Robert Statchen
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law
B.A., Clark University,
M.B.A., University of Connecticut,
J.D., Chicago-Kent College of Law,
LL.M., Boston University School of Law

As a joint appointee to the School of Law and the School of Business, Professor Statchen teaches and advises J.D. and M.B.A. students in the Small Business Clinic of the Law and Business Center for Advancing Entrepreneurship. Before he began teaching, he practiced corporate and transactional law for profit and nonprofit entities with the law firm of Tobin, Carberry, O'Malley, Riley & Selinger, PC in New London, CT. Prior to that, he was a Civil Litigator in Stamford, CT, with the law firm of Ryan, Ryan, Johnson & Deluca, LLP. Professor Statchen began his legal career in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps and continues to serve in the Connecticut Air National Guard. During his military career he served in Operation Southern Watch in Saudi Arabia and Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was elected to the House of Delegates of the Connecticut Bar Association from 2002 to 2005.

Email: rstatchen@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-782-1553
Office: 212

Samuel Stonefield
Professor of Law
A.B., Dartmouth College
J.D., Harvard Law School

Professor Stonefield was a Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination prior to joining the faculty in 1981. He has also served as a managing attorney for the Western Massachusetts Legal Services program, a staff attorney in a prisoners' legal assistance program, and has engaged in the private practice of law. He recently completed a term of service on the Board of the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, a government bank that grants mortgage loans for affordable housing, and has authored the chapters on the national secondary mortgage markets in a leading real estate finance law treatise. His areas of interest include real estate finance law, civil rights, and evidence.

Email: sstonefield@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-782-1441
Office: 312

Katharine Van Tassel
Professor of Law
R.N., B.S.N., Case Western Reserve University
J.D., Case Western University School of Law

Katharine Van Tassel received a B.S.N. from Case Western Reserve University and a J.D from Case Western University School of Law. She is currently completing an M.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health. Professor Van Tassel clerked for U.S. District Court Judge William K. Thomas, then became associated with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey before becoming the Owner and Managing Partner of Van Tassel & Associates, a thirteen lawyer firm which specialized in products liability and federal multi-district court litigation. Professor Van Tassel teaches health law, bioethics, food & drug law, torts and products liability. She is a Hearing Officer for medical staff peer review proceedings and an expert consultant in nursing home abuse and neglect cases. Recently, Professor Van Tassel has served as a member of both the Clinical Ethics Review Team and the Institutional Review Board for Experimental Drugs and Devices of the largest hospital system in Western Massachusetts..

Email: kvantassel@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-782-1428
Office: 208
http://www.katharinevantassel.com

Barbara A. West
Associate Dean for Library and Information Resources
Assistant Professor of Law
B.A., University of Illinois
M.A., University of Denver
J.D., Northern Illinois University
LL.M., De Paul University

Prior to joining the administration at Western New England College in 2004, Dean West served as Associate Director for Research and Instruction at the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland School of Law. Previously she was Associate Director of the University of Toledo School of Law Library from 1998-2000. She has held posts at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Moraine Valley Community college, Northern Illinois University College of Law and Elgin Community College. Her experience in legal practice includes work as an attorney for the American Dental Association; private practice; and service as an attorney for the Sagamon County State's Attorney's Office, for the State of Illinois in the Department of Regulation, and for the Capital Development Board.

Email: bwest@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-782-1201
Office: Librarian's Suite

Arthur D. Wolf
Professor of Law
A.B., Tufts University
LL.B., Columbia Law School

Professor Wolf, who clerked for New Jersey Superior Court Judge Theodore I. Botter, served as a Trial and Appellate Attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. A former national staff member for the McGovern presidential campaign and Study Supervisor at the Vera Institute of Justice, he also spent five years as Special Counsel to Representative Robert F. Drinan, United States Congress, and as a consultant to the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, Inc. Professor Wolf began teaching here in 1978. Among his writings are a three-volume treatise, Court-Awarded Attorney Fees (published in 1983 with current updates), which he coauthored, and articles on supplemental jurisdiction in the federal courts. Professor Wolf has a special interest in international human rights. He serves as Director of the Law School’s Institute for Legislative and Governmental Affairs.

Email: awolf@law.wnec.edu
Phone: 413-782-1435
Office: 215
http://wneclaw.wnec.edu/faculty/wolf