Center Faculty and Staff

Constance Z. Wagner, J.D.
Director, Center for International and Comparative Law 
Director, Madrid Summer Program
Professor
constance.wagner@slu.edu 

Professor Constance Wagner has taught at SLU Law since 1995. Her areas of specialization include the law of business associations, financial services regulation, international trade law and international business transactions. She holds a secondary academic appointment in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.

Wagner has often focused on international and comparative law in her legal career. Before entering law teaching, she practiced corporate law in New York City for 14 years, including advising domestic and foreign clients on cross-border transactions and regulatory matters. She teaches international law courses as a member of the Center for International and Comparative Law. She has taught in the SLU Law Madrid Summer Law Program, as a visiting law professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing and at Washington University in Saint Louis. Her scholarship includes articles on international trade law, women in international law, corporate social responsibility, and business and human rights. She is the publications chair for the International Human Rights Committee of the American Bar Association Section of International Law, and is working on a book on the emerging area of business and human rights due diligence.

She holds a J.D. and certificate in foreign and comparative law from Columbia University School of Law, an LL.M. from Universitaet Konstanz in Germany, an MBA from Saint Louis University Chaifetz School of Business, and a B.A. in economics and philosophy from Northwestern University College of Arts and Sciences.

Ira H. Trako, J.D.
Instructor of law
Executive director, Center for International and Comparative Law
Program director, LL.M.  Program in American Law for Foreign Lawyers
ira.trako@slu.edu

Ira H. Trako is an instructor of law and serves as the executive director for the Center for International and Comparative Law and as the program director for the LL.M. in American Law for Foreign Lawyers program. Her areas of focus include criminal law, international and comparative criminal law, public international law and immigration law. Trako has taught Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court, Immigration and Crime in the International Context, and International Courts and Tribunals at SLU LAW. She has also taught in the Summer Law Program in Madrid. 

Trako is a licensed member of the Missouri Bar Association (MoBar). She is also an active member of the American Bar Association (ABA) and has held numerous leadership positions in the ABA International Law Section (ABA ILS) since 2014. She serves as co-chair of the section’s International Legal Education & Specialist Certification Committee. She also serves as the current vice chair of the International Courts & Judicial Affairs Committee and is a member of several ABA ILS Committees including the International Criminal Law Committee. In 2022 and 2023, she received an ABA presidential appointment to serve as a member of the Law Library of Congress Advisory Commission.

Prior to joining the SLU Law faculty, Trako's areas of legal practice focused on municipal and state criminal offenses, appeals, and immigration law as it applies to criminal convictions. During law school, she received a concentration in international and comparative law and held a criminal law externship with Judge William D. Stiehl at the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois.

Lauren E. Bartlett
Professor
Director, Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic
lauren.bartlett@slu.edu

Professor Lauren E. Bartlett is Director of the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic at Saint Louis University School of Law, which she launched in Spring 2020. Through the clinic, Bartlett and her law students provide free civil legal services to and file international human rights complaints on behalf of community members in the St. Louis region. Their human rights work focuses on protecting the rights of incarcerated persons, immigrants, and communities facing environmental racism.

Previously, Bartlett taught at Ohio Northern University College of Law, American University Washington College of Law, and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. At American University Washington College of Law, she provided training and technical assistance to legal aid attorneys and public defenders using human rights law in their everyday work and supported the work of former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez.

Bartlett is a former legal aid attorney and cofounded the Louisiana Justice Institute, a nonprofit civil rights legal advocacy organization, where she focused on protecting the rights of persons affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Before obtaining her law degree, Bartlett worked with nonprofit organizations in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nepal, Ghana, Bangladesh and India, alongside advocates fighting for social and environmental justice. Bartlett holds a B.A. from the University of California Davis, and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.

Monica Eppinger, J.D.
Professor
monica.eppinger@slu.edu

Monica Eppinger's expertise lies in the areas of property, national security, and anthropology of law. In her scholarship, Eppinger uses ethnographic tools to investigate cutting-edge topics in law and social change at home and abroad. Her articles have been selected for the prestigious Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum, twice won the Thompson-Coburn Scholarship Award, and received the support of Fulbright-Hays, National Science Foundation, and Yale-Olin funding awards. Her current book project, based on field research over two decades, explores crucial facets of Ukrainians' relationships to land. 

Eppinger was a director of SLU Law's Center for International and Comparative Law from 2017-2023. She has been U.S. national reporter in property to the International Academy of Comparative Law, chaired the Law and Anthropology Section of the American Association of Law Schools, and sits on the editorial board of the leading journal in anthropology of law, the Political and Legal Anthropology Review. She was a visiting scholar affiliate of the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California Berkeley from 2022-2024 and is a nonresident fellow at the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy of Washington University in Saint Louis and a research fellow of the Saint Louis University Research Institute. She holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. 

Before entering academia, Eppinger served in the United States diplomatic corps as a tenured Foreign Service officer, with tours of duty or policy-making experience in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caspian region, and West Africa. She received an individual Superior Honor Award, the State Department's highest civilian honor, for work on NATO and a group Superior Honor Award for work on U.S.-Ukraine bilateral relations.

Chad Flanders, J.D. 
Professor
chad.flanders@slu.edu

Professor Chad Flanders teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, constitutional law and the philosophy of law. He is also interested in comparative criminal law and the intersection of criminal law and immigration law. In the 2012-2013 academic year, Flanders was a Fulbright Lecturer at Nanjing University, China, and has lectured at several universities in China. Flanders organized a CICL and SLU Law Journal Symposium, and several speaker series on the intersection of criminal law and immigration law. He has also been a faculty mentor for the CICL Visiting International Scholars program.

Since arriving at SLU, Flanders has published more than 20 articles or essays in journals such as the Florida Law Review, the California Law Review, the Missouri Law Review and the Alaska Law Review, and his work on Bush v. Gore has been cited by state and federal courts. He has also written numerous opinion pieces for national and local newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Politico.

William P. Johnson, J.D.
Professor
Rector, SLU-Madrid 
Vice President, Saint Louis University
william.johnson@slu.edu 

William P. Johnson is a professor of law and the rector of SLU-Madrid. Johnson was SLU LAW's dean from 2017-2024. Before his deanship, Johnson was director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and the program director for the SLU Law Summer Law Program in Madrid. He joined the SLU LAW faculty in 2012 after holding an appointment on the law faculty of the University of North Dakota. He has also been a visiting professor at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany, the Université Paris-Dauphine in Paris, France, and Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, and has been a guest lecturer at Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, Hungary.

Prior to becoming a law professor, Johnson practiced corporate and commercial law for six years in the Milwaukee office of Foley & Lardner LLP. He focused his practice on complex commercial arrangements, cross-border business transactions, and international product distribution. Prior to joining Foley & Lardner, he was a judicial law clerk to Justice Russell A. Anderson of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Yvette Joy Liebesman, J.D.
Professor
yvette.liebesman@slu.edu 

In addition to being a member of CICL, Professor Yvette Joy Liebesman is the founder and faculty advisor of the school's intellectual property law concentration program. Her research interests focus on copyright and trademark law and their intersection with art, science and technology. Liebesman has taught her seminar on IP and global entrepreneurship at both SLU Law and at the George Washington University IP Law Program at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, part of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition. In 2013, Liebesman received the International Trademark Association's Ladas Award for writing excellence on the subject of trademarks and related matters, which is regarded as the top national award in trademark scholarship. In addition, she has been interviewed by the World Trademark Review regarding the 2019 Iancu v. Brunetti Supreme Court opinion allowing the U.S. registration of offensive marks and the decision's implications for trademark registration in other countries. In 2022, she was an invited lecturer at the Unversity of the West Indies Faculty of Law's Research Skills Series, where she spoke about copyright in publications.

Marcia McCormick, J.D.
Professor
marcia.mccormick@slu.edu

Professor Marcia L. McCormick's scholarship has explored the areas of employment and labor law, federal courts, as well as gender and the law. A prolific blogger, McCormick is a co-editor and contributor to the Workplace Prof Blog, which provides daily information on developments in the law of the workplace and scholarship about it.

Susan McGraugh, J.D.
Professor
Director, Criminal Defense Clinic
susan.mcgraugh@slu.edu

Since joining the School of Law full time in 2003,  Professor Susan McGraugh has directed the Criminal Defense Clinic, where she also networks with mental health care providers to offer representation to their clients. McGraugh spent two years at a small firm before joining the Missouri State Public Defender's Office in St. Louis in 1990. She was a trial attorney representing indigent, homeless and mentally ill clients charged with criminal offenses. She also worked in the office’s Capital Defense Unit. McGraugh has written and argued criminal appeals in the Eastern, Western and Southern Districts of Missouri.

Carol A. Needham, J.D.
Emmanuel Myers Professor of Law
carol.needham@slu.edu

A prolific writer and speaker, Emmanuel Myers Professor of Law Carol Needham has been in the mix on several issues — primarily under the umbrella of legal ethics and professional responsibility. Presently, her scholarship centers on the ethics issues faced by in-house counsel and lawyers in transactional practice, cross-border practice and professional licensing issues, including the multijurisdictional practice of law. Needham’s recent articles include: "Practicing Non-U.S. Law in the United States: Multijurisdictional Practice, Foreign Legal Consultants and Other Aspects of Cross-Border Legal Practice," 15 Michigan State Journal of International Law 605 (2007). "The Professional Responsibilities of Law Professors: The Scope of the Duty of Confidentiality, Character and Fitness Questionnaires, and Engagement in Governance," Journal of Legal Education (March 2006). "Enhancing a Law Department’s Flexibility to Respond to Unexpected Challenges: MultiJurisdictional Practice and the In-House Lawyer," Corporate Counsel Newsletter (February 2006).

Deborah O'Malley, J.D.
Associate professor
deborah.omalley@slu.edu 

Deborah Sundquist O’Malley is an associate professor of legal analysis, research and communication at Saint Louis University School of Law, where she teaches legal research and writing. Her teaching and research interests include generative artificial intelligence in law and the legal profession and law student professional identity formation.

Before joining SLU Law, O’Malley was on the faculty at Syracuse University College of Law, where she taught J.D. and international LL.M. students. She served in the administration of the law school’s international program, developing and leading the international LL.M. orientation program and introductory course and supervising J.D. student mentors. She also served on the faculty committee for international programs. While on the faculty at Syracuse, O’Malley received the “Lex Lucet Mundum” award by an LL.M. graduating class for excellence in teaching.

She has directed and taught in a distance field placement program and taught students from across the globe in an online J.D. program. She has also worked in law student affairs. Before moving into legal education, O’Malley practiced corporate and real estate law at law firms in New York and Idaho.

Henry M. Ordower, J.D.
Professor
henry.ordower@slu.edu

Professor Henry M. Ordower is a past co-director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and director of the Berlin Summer Program at Saint Louis University School of Law. In addition to research and teaching in United States and comparative taxation and corporate finance, Ordower has maintained an active consulting practice advising in tax planning, hedge and private equity funds, and business structure, as well as providing expert testimony on taxation and business organizations in complex litigation matters. Recent research has addressed issues of tax distribution and its role in the growing disparity between wealthy and less wealthy individuals.

Ordower has an extensive background in European languages, including several years of Ph.D. work in Germanic and Scandinavian languages at The University of Chicago. An avid traveler, Ordower has lectured and participated in international legal conferences in Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as North America and has visited well over 100 countries. He has been elected to membership in the American College of Tax Counsel, the European Association of Tax Law Professors, and the International Academy of Comparative Law.

Afonso Seixas Nunes, S.J.
Associate Professor
afonso.seixasnunessj@slu.edu

Originally from Portugal, Associate Professor Afonso Seixas Nunes joins the SLU LAW faculty after serving at Oxford University as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government and as a junior research fellow at Campion Hall. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2010. Seixas Nunes specializes in international humanitarian law with a particular interest in use-of-force and the challenges of new technological warfare, such as, autonomous weapon systems and emergent problems in the exploration of outer space. He authored The Legitimacy and Accountability of Autonomous Weapons Systems - An Humanitarian Perspective (CUP, 2022). Since 2022, he has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, and since 2025, a member of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University.

Michael Sinha, M.D., J.D., M.P.H.
Associate Professor
michael.sinha@slu.edu 

Associate Professor Michael Sinha has a background in law, medicine, and public health. Before coming to SLU LAW, he served in various research and teaching roles at Harvard Medical School, Northeastern University School of Law, and Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Originally from St. Louis, Sinha completed his undergraduate degree in biophysical chemistry from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire before returning to St. Louis to conduct research in medical oncology at Washington University School of Medicine. He then completed a combined M.D./J.D. program at Southern Illinois University and trained in internal medicine in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

During his clinical training, Sinha earned an M.P.H. in law and public health from Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. While in Boston, he renewed his focus on health law research and scholarship with fellowships at the Program On Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science at Harvard Medical School. He continues as affiliated faculty at PORTAL and is a core partner at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL) at the University of Copenhagen.

Anders Walker, J.D.
Lillie Myers Professor of Law
anders.walker@slu.edu  

Lillie Myers Professor of Law Anders Walker’s research and teaching focus on intersections between constitutional law, criminal law, and legal history. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Hastings Law Journal, and the Florida State University Law Review. He won the 2010 Law & Society Association Article Prize, the 2009 AALS Criminal Justice Section Junior Scholar Award, and was voted Teacher of the Year in 2011 and 2009. His book, "The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates Used Brown v. Board of Education to Stall Civil Rights" was published by the Oxford University Press in 2009.

Helga Oestreicher
Administrative assistant
helga.oestreicher@slu.edu