Our faculty is the cornerstone of student learning and success at St. John’s Law. Informed by their scholarship and practical experience in the field, each member of our faculty brings a range of gifts as educators that makes the Law School immeasurably better. And, together, they are part of a transformation of our faculty that will propel St. John’s forward for years to come. This special edition of our See infra newsletter introduces you to our newest full-time faculty members.

Anna Arons comes to St. John’s from NYU School of Law, where she was an Acting Assistant Professor of Lawyering and the Impact Project Director of NYU’s Family Defense Clinic. Her scholarship focuses on the government’s regulation and policing of families and the intersection of parental rights and race, gender, and poverty. Her most recent article, “The Empty Promise of the Fourth Amendment in the Family Regulation System,” appears in the Washington University Law Review. Prior to entering academia, Professor Arons was a public defender in the family defense practice of Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem. At St. John’s, she teaches Criminal Law, Evidence, and courses related to family law.

Noa Ben-Asher joins our faculty from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, where they were the James D. Hopkins Professor of Law. Professor Ben-Asher is a leading scholar of law, gender, and sexuality whose work has appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, the Columbia Journal of Gender & the Law, the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Washington University Law Review, the Boston College Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Cardozo Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review Online, the Tulane Law Review, and the Family Law Quarterly. Their forthcoming book, Secular-Christian Social Justice, will be published by NYU Press. Professor Ben-Asher teaches Torts, Family Law, and Law, Gender & Sexuality at St. John’s.

Miriam A. Cherry, a scholar of contracts, employment law, and the future of work, joined the St. John’s Law faculty from Saint Louis University School of Law, where she served as Associate Dean for Research & Engagement and as Co-Director for the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law. A prolific scholar, Professor Cherry is the author of over 40 law review articles concerning employment, business, and contract law topics. She is also the co-editor of Invisible Labor (University of California Press) and the author of Work in the Digital Age (Aspen) and the second edition of Contracts in the Real World (West Academic). Professor Cherry is writing a book about online labor activism and a report for the United Nations-International Labor Office on the status of gig workers in the United States. She is Faculty Director of St. John’s Center for Labor and Employment Law and teaches Contracts, Business Organizations, and Employment Law. 

Elissa Germaine was the director of the Fairbridge Investor Rights Clinic at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University for over a decade. As one of our newest faculty members, she is the Associate Director of our in-house Securities Arbitration Clinic, teaching students lawyering skills while representing underserved investors in arbitration claims before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). An expert in securities arbitration, Professor Germaine is an appointed member of the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee and recently completed four years of service on FINRA’s National Arbitration and Mediation Committee. Before joining academia, she was a securities litigator at a major law firm in San Francisco and a law clerk to a federal judge in San Diego.

Martin J. LaFalce joined the St. John’s Law faculty after 14 years as a public defender with the Legal Aid Society of New York. Most recently, he worked as a policy attorney in Legal Aid’s Criminal Defense Practice, coordinating their legislative reform agenda before the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature. At St. John’s, Professor LaFalce directs our in-house Defense and Advocacy Clinic and teaches Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure.

Philip Lee comes to the St. John’s Law faculty from UDC David A. Clarke School. His scholarship focuses on academic freedom, diversity and educational access, higher education law, and property law and race, and his work has appeared in a wide variety of law reviews, including Emory, Ohio State, West Virginia, Utah, Brooklyn, and St. Louis. Professor Lee earned his doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and also served as Assistant Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School, where he led the office’s diversity outreach initiatives for four years. Before joining academia, he was a trial attorney in New York City for five years—first in the New York City Law Department and later at a white-collar criminal defense boutique. He teaches Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Race and the Law, and Education Law.

Mark C. Niles joined the faculty last year, teaching Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, and Constitutional Law. A former dean of Seattle University School of Law, Professor Niles was a longtime faculty member and Associate Dean at American University School of Law. Most recently, he has been on the faculty at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. He is the author of a popular Administrative Law casebook, as well as numerous law review articles on administrative law, civil procedure, civil rights, and race. His recent article, “A New Balance of Evils: Prosecutorial Misconduct, Iqbal and the End of Absolute Immunity,” appears in the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Colleen Parker '03 serves on the Law School’s full-time faculty as an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing. Already well-known to our students, she has taught a variety of courses as an adjunct professor, including Legal Writing I, Legal Writing II, Public Interest Drafting, and the Externship Seminar. She was also an Assistant Director in our Office of Career Development for several years. Before starting her teaching career, Professor Parker spent seven years as a litigator at a major New York law firm, an additional seven years as an education attorney representing children with disabilities, and served as an impartial hearing officer with the New York City Department of Education.  

Anjali Pathmanathan joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Legal Writing. An experienced criminal defense attorney, she has served as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, as a program associate at the Vera Institute of Justice, and as senior appellate counsel at the Center for Appellate Litigation. Professor Pathmanathan has previously taught Appellate Advocacy, and her writing has focused predominantly on shedding light on due process violations within the criminal legal system. At St. John’s, she currently teaches Legal Writing I and Legal Writing II, and looks forward to teaching courses related to criminal law, evidence, and legal practice. 

Abel Rodríguez, an expert on immigration law and policy and the intersection of criminal and immigration law, came to St. John’s from Villanova, where he directed the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee, and Emigrant Services. He was also a Lecturer in Law at Penn and an Associate Professor of Religion, Law, and Social Justice at Cabrini University. Before becoming a full-time academic, Professor Rodríguez served as a staff attorney at Nationalities Service Center and an immigration specialist at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. He was also the Langer, Grogan, and Diver Fellow in Social Justice at Esperanza Immigration Legal Services. Professor Rodríguez teaches Criminal Law, Immigration Law, and Crimmigration at St. John’s.

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Please email Lori Herz, See infra's Managing Editor and Lead Writer, at herzl@stjohns.edu.

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