The Drake Law School welcomed three visiting faculty members to campus in August.
Miguel Schor, Jennifer Zwagerman, LW’04, and Jennifer Bard will be teaching and researching at the Law School through the end of the academic year. With three distinctly different backgrounds, they bring a diverse set of expertise and experiences to the law school.
“Being able to attract distinguished visitors is a great benefit for Drake,” said John Edwards, associate dean of the Drake Law School. “They provide insights and perspectives in their fields of expertise that students might not otherwise encounter.
“That diversity also impacts the faculty as visitors share their experiences and ideas drawn from other institutions,” he added. “It is a great opportunity to enrich learning not only for the student, but for the visitors and everyone with whom they interact.”
Schor to oversee Constitutional Law Center
Schor joins Drake from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where he has been teaching since 2002. He received his law degree from Tulane University in New Orleans and practiced law in New Orleans before pursuing a master’s degree in Latin American studies at Tulane. In a break from scholarship he rode his bike across the country before starting his master’s degree.
Moving from Argentina to the United States as a child, Schor is an expert in comparative constitutionalism. At Drake, he will serve as visiting director of the Constitutional Law Center while the center’s director Mark Kende, professor of law, is on sabbatical.
“It’s a fabulous center, and it does a lot of cutting edge work,” Schor said.
Alumna to teach courses in agricultural law
Zwagerman has an extensive background in agricultural law. After receiving her undergraduate degree in agricultural communications at Michigan State University, she worked in the beef industry before deciding to attend Drake Law School for its agricultural law program. She also holds an LL.M. in agricultural law from the University of Arkansas.
“Even when I went to law school, I knew I wanted to be in the industry,” she said. “I’ve been interested in it for as long as I can remember.”
She is an attorney at Faegre and Benson in Des Moines, where she focuses on food and agriculture litigation. The firm worked closely with the law school to form this partnership.
Zwagerman, working with Drake’s Agricultural Law Center, said she is excited to return to her alma mater after several years in the field, to focus on teaching and research.
“Academia has always been an area I’ve been interested in,” she said. “The opportunity to teach in the area I’m interested in ““ have always been interested in ““ was an opportunity that I wouldn’t have wanted to pass up.”
Bard to focus on health and law
Bard is director of the health law program and joint Juris Doctor/Doctor of Medicine program at the Texas Tech University Law School. With a law degree from Yale Law School and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Connecticut, Bard has extensive knowledge in both fields. Her areas of expertise include: public health law, medical malpractice, bioethics, correctional health and the insanity defense.
Before joining the faculty at Texas Tech, she served as an assistant professor and research director for the Program on Legal and Ethical Issues in Correctional Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Previously, she worked as an associate attorney at Shearman and Sterling in New York, a health policy analyst for the AIDS Action Council of the Government Affairs Department and as an assistant attorney general for the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office.
Bard said she is excited to teach at Drake this year and is particularly looking forward to developing relationships with professionals who work in the area of health law.
“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to teach at a university located in a city like Des Moines with so many opportunities for interaction between students and lawyers who are engaged in the day-to-day practice of health law,” said Bard.