Center Faculty and Staff

Michael Duff, J.D. 
Co-Director, William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law
Professor
michael.duff@slu.edu

Professor Michael Duff joins the law school faculty for a permanent role after visiting in the fall of 2022.  Professor Duff is a world-renowned scholar on labor law, worker’s compensation and evidence. He attended college in his late 20s, while simultaneously employed full-time as a union-represented airline ramp worker. Professor Duff is a graduate of Harvard Law School and joins the law school after serving in a named professorship role at University of Wyoming College of Law.  

Lauren E. Bartlett, J.D.
Assistant Professor
lauren.bartlett@slu.edu

Professor Lauren Bartlett is the director of the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic. She has experience litigating in state and federal court in Louisiana and Ohio, as well as filing complaints and petitions with U.N. Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. A former legal aid attorney, Prof. Bartlett has focused her career on providing access to justice for all and protecting the rights of the poorest of the poor in the U.S. Her scholarship focuses on the intersections between legal ethics, access to justice, and human rights. 

Marcia McCormick, J.D.
Co-Director, William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law
Professor 
marcia.mccormick@slu.edu

Professor Marcia McCormick's scholarship has explored the areas of employment and labor law, federal courts, as well as gender and the law. A prolific blogger, Prof. 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.

Carol A. Needham, J.D.
Emanuel Myers Professor
carol.needham@slu.edu

Professor Carol Needham's current 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. Prior to joining the SLU LAW faculty in 1992, she practiced law in Los Angeles, where she negotiated employment contracts, licensing agreements, project financing documents, loan workouts, mergers, IPOs, private placements and acquisitions, and participated in commercial litigation.

Elizabeth Pendo, J.D.
Joseph J. Simeone Professor of Law
elizabeth.pendo@slu.edu

Professor Elizabeth Pendo is a nationally recognized expert in disability law and health care law. Her scholarship focuses on the difference disability makes in places in our society such as the health care system and the workplace, with a particular interest in legal and social meanings of disability. She published a series of articles exposing inaccessible medical equipment as a barrier to care, including Reducing Disparities through Health Care Reform: Disability and Accessible Medical Equipment, 4 Utah L. Rev. 1057 (2010) and Disability, Equipment Barriers and Women’s Health: Using the ADA to Provide Meaningful Access, 2 St. Louis Univ. J. Health L. & Pol’y 15 (2008). Other projects include civil rights and health care reform approaches to health disparities for people with disabilities; models of disability and their impact on health care; public right-of-way and accessibility issues in the City of St. Louis; and genetic testing in the workplace, and its intersections with classifications based on gender, race, class and disability.

Kerry A. Ryan, J.D.
Associate Professor
kerry.ryan@slu.edu

Professor Kerry Ryan’s recent scholarship explores the interaction between the income tax and financial aid systems and the ethical underpinnings of the gift-tax exclusion for education and healthcare. She teaches Estate Law and Planning, Federal Income Tax, Taxation, and Trusts. Before entering academia as a professor, Prof. Ryan practiced at a firm in Indianapolis in estate planning and business succession.

Falethia Hawthorne
Program Coordinator
falethia.hawthorne@slu.edu

Matthew Bodie
Visiting Fellow
matthew.bodie@slu.edu

Visiting Fellow Matthew Bodie earned degrees at New York University School of Law, Harvard Law School and Princeton University. Matthew Bodie has served Saint Louis University School of Law in a variety of positions and has instructed courses such as Labor Law, Employee Benefits Law and Contracts I & II.