Institute Faculty

Sara Sun Beale (B.A., J.D., University of Michigan). Ms. Beale teaches first year criminal law and upper class courses in federal criminal law, criminal procedure, and appellate practice. Her principal academic interests concern the federal government's role in the criminal justice system. She is the co-author of Federal Criminal Law and Related Actions: Crimes, Forfeiture, the False Claims and RICO, Grand Jury Law and Practice, and Federal Criminal Law and Its Enforcement, as well as scores of articles. Ms. Beale has been active in law reform efforts related to the federal government's role in criminal justice matters. Since 2005 she has served as the reporter for the Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules, which drafts the procedural rules that govern federal criminal cases. She has served as an associate reporter for the Workload Subcommittee of the Federal Courts Study Committee (where much of her work focused on the Sentencing Guidelines) and as the reporter for a three branch federal-state working group convened by Attorney General Janet Reno to consider the principles that should govern the federalization of criminal law. Ms. Beale also served as a member of an American Bar Association task force studying the federalization of criminal law. She has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on six occasions, representing the United States and as appointed counsel for an indigent defendant. Ms. Beale clerked for Judge Wade H. McCree, Jr. on the Sixth Circuit, and served in the Office of Legal Counsel and the Office of the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice before joining the Duke Law School faculty in 1979.

Diane Dimond (B.A., University of Iowa; J.D., Harvard Law School). Ms. Dimond is a Clinical Professor of Law and the director of Legal Writing at Duke University School of Law. She teaches the first-year course in Legal Analysis, Research & Writing and two upper-level seminars, Negotiation and Contract Drafting. She has taught Introduction to American Law at Duke's summer institutes in Geneva in 2004 and Hong Kong in 2007. Ms. Dimond began her practice of law in New York City at a major Wall Street firm in the litigation department, and after six years, moved to North Carolina, where she continued her practice in litigation, first as an associate and later as a partner, in a large North Carolina firm. Her major practice area was in commercial litigation, including employment-related litigation and advice, defense of securities fraud actions, trade secrets/intellectual property suits, nuclear power plant construction litigation, personal injury insurance defense, and representation of both corporate clients and foreign governmental bodies in transnational disputes. She has had extensive experience in pre-trial discovery and motion practice, lay and expert witness preparation, appellate brief writing, computerized document management, and settlement negotiations. While most of the matters she handled were filed in state and federal courts, she has also represented clients in a number of arbitration proceedings. After almost 17 years of practice, she joined the Duke Law faculty to teach full time in 1994, and was appointed as Clinical Professor of Law in January 2001. In 2004, she won the Duke Bar Association's Distinguished Teaching Award. She is a member of the bars of the states of New York and North Carolina, as well as a number of federal district and appellate courts.

Ulrich Ehricke (Ph.D. in Law, University of Hanover; habil., Humboldt-University; LL.M., University of London). Mr. Ehricke is a professor at the University of Cologne, where he serves as head of the Institutes for European Law, Energy Law, and International and European Insolvency Law. Since 2005, he has also served as a judge at the Higher Regional court in Düsseldorf. Mr. Ehricke has been a professor at the University of Bremen, a guest professor at the University of Geneva, an assistant at the Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Private Law (Hamburg) and at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, and a judge at the Higher Regional Court (Bremen). His research focuses on German and European cartel and competition law, German and international insolvency law, company and corporation law, international arbitral jurisdiction, and energy law.

Navraj Singh Ghaleigh (LL.B., King's College London; LL.M., University of Cambridge; Barrister-at-Laws). Mr. Ghaleigh has been the Lecturer in Public Law at Edinburgh since 2003. He is also a Research Associate at the University of Zurich's e-Democracy Centre. Previously a barrister in London and Lecturer at King's College London, he undertook his graduate work at the University of Cambridge, the European University Institute (Florence) and the University of California, Berkeley (Fulbright Scholar). Mr. Ghaleigh's climate change research and teaching addresses the law of climate change as a matter of public international, EU and domestic law. His most recent research has focused on climate change litigation and challenges to the EU ETS as well as broader issues within climate law. In 2010 Mr. Ghaleigh, with Professor Alan Boyle, will be undertaking a study for the European Commission, entitled "The legal framework on human rights and the environment applicable to European enterprises operating outside the EU." The project involves a team of international experts from across the EU, India, China, Chile, Nigeria, Rwanda and Mexico. Mr. Ghaleigh has also worked extensively in the field of electoral law, especially party and election funding, direct democracy and referendums and the implications of new technologies for the electoral process. His work has been widely cited and reviewed in scholarly publications, the quality press, including the Times Literary Supplement and the Financial Times, and parliamentary reports. He has advised various regulatory agencies, foreign governments and international organizations.

Thomas Kadner (Dr.iur., University of Frankfurt am Main; habil., Humboldt-University Berlin; LL.M., Harvard Law School). Mr. Kadner is professor of European private law, conflict of laws, and comparative law at the University of Geneva and director of the program on Transnational Law. He has taught comparative law and conflict of laws at Humboldt-University Berlin as well as at the University of Potsdam and the University of Florida. Mr. Kadner was a member of the faculty of the Duke-Geneva Institute in Transnational Law (2004) and has held Visiting Professorships at the Universities of Poitiers/France, Florida, Exeter/UK, and at the Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. He is Fellow at the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) in Vienna, Austria. He has published several books and numerous articles in the fields of European private law, comparative law, harmonization of the law, and comparative conflict of laws (most recently: Comparative Contract Law: Cases, Materials and Exercises (2009)).

Robert Kolb (LL.B., University of Bern; LL.M., University of London; Ph.D. in international law, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva). Mr. Kolb is Professor of public international law at the University of Geneva and is a lawyer with Lalive et Associés in Geneva. In 2008, he was the Director of Studies for the Hague Academy of International Law. Mr. Kolb was a lecturer in public international law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, and later an associate professor at the University of Bern, and adjunct professor at the University of Neuchatel. He has also taught at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (and its predecessor institute), as well as the Catholic University of Milan. Mr. Kolb has worked as a legal advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross and sporadically for the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. He was the Secretary of the Institut de Droit International and was a member of the Board of Directors of the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law, renamed the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in 2007. He serves as Co-Director of the Duke-Geneva Institute.

Nicolas Leroux (Maîtrise en droit, University of Lyon 3 - Jean Moulin; D.E.A. in International Law, Ph.D. in International Law, University of Paris 2 - Panthéon Assas). Mr. Leroux is an attorney with Lalive, an international law firm based in Geneva. His practice is focused on advising States, international governmental and non-governmental organizations and private corporations in the areas of public international law, international arbitration and international projects. He was previously a visiting researcher at the University of Montreal and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, and recently published a book on the status of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Ralf Michaels (1st state examination and Dr. jur., Passau University; 2nd state examination, Hamburg; LL.M., Cambridge University). Mr. Michaels is a Professor of Law at Duke Law School and was the director of its Center for International and Comparative Law. He has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Paris II and Princeton and a senior research associate and a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Law and Private International Law in Hamburg; he has also held visiting fellowships at Harvard Law School, the American Academy in Berlin, and at the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. His research and teaching interests are in comparative law, conflict of laws, and law and globalization; he has published books and articles in all these disciplines. Currently, he is working on a book on U.S. courts as world courts.

Barak Richman (A.B., Brown University; J.D., Harvard University; M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley). Mr. Richman is Professor of Law and Business Administration at Duke University, and his research interests include the economics of contracting, new institutional economics, antitrust, and healthcare policy. His current work uses organizational theory to understand trading networks in New York's diamond industry and how non-medical interventions can inform health policy. His recent work includes publications in the Virginia Law Review, Law and Social Inquiry, and Health Affairs, a co-edited symposium volume of Law and Contemporary Problems with Clark Havighurst entitled "Who Pays? Who Benefits? Distributional Issues in Health Care," and representing the NFL Coaches Association in an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Marco Sassoli (Doctor of Laws, University of Basel). Mr. Sassoli is professor of international law at the University of Geneva and director of its Department of public international law and international organization. He chairs the board of Geneva Call, an NGO with the objective to engage armed non-State actors to adhere to humanitarian norms, and is Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Council on Human Rights Policy. From 2001-03, he was professor of international law at the University of Quebec, where he remains associate professor. He is also associate professor at the University of Laval, Canada. Mr. Sassoli is a member of the Swiss Bar and has worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross at the headquarters, inter alia as deputy head of its legal division, and in the Middle East and the Balkans. He has also served as registrar at the Swiss Supreme Court. Mr. Sassoli has published on international humanitarian law, human rights law, international criminal law, international law and private actors, the sources of international law, and on state responsibility.
Richard Schmalbeck (B.A., J.D., University of Chicago). Mr. Schmalbeck is the Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett Professor at Duke University School of Law, where he specializes in federal taxation. He has taught at the law schools of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, and has served as the dean of the University of Illinois College of Law. Mr. Schmalbeck's recent publications have primarily related to nongovernmental organizations, and international tax and estate planning. He serves as Co-Director of the Duke-Geneva Institute.

Scott Silliman (B.A., J.D., University of North Carolina). Mr. Silliman is a Professor of the Practice of Law at Duke Law School and Executive Director of Duke's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. He served 25 years as an Air Force judge advocate, retiring in the grade of colonel just prior to taking his position with the Center in 1993. As the senior attorney for Tactical Air Command during the Persian Gulf War, and later as Air Combat Command's senior attorney, he has extensive experience in operational law. He is widely sought throughout the United States as a guest lecturer on the Law of War, and is a frequent commentator on CNN, National Public Radio and other national and international radio and television news programs on issues involving military law and national security.

Jonathan Wiener (A.B., J.D., Harvard University). Mr. Wiener is the William R. and Thomas L. Perkins Professor of Law at Duke Law School, as well as Professor of Environmental Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy, and a University Fellow of Resources for the Future (RFF). He was the founding Faculty Director of the Duke Center for Environmental Solutions, now the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. In 2008, Mr. Wiener served as President of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), the first law professor or lawyer to hold this post, and is a Fellow of the SRA. He has taught at Harvard Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, Sciences Po, and l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and le Centre International de Recherche sur L'Environnement et le Développement (CIRED) in Paris. His courses have included Environmental Law, Climate Change and the Law, Risk Regulation in the U.S. and Europe, Mass Torts, International Environmental Law, Property Law, and Global Property Regimes. Mr. Wiener has written widely on U.S., European, and international environmental law and risk regulation, including the books The Reality of Precaution (forthcoming 2010), Reconstructing Climate Policy (2003) and Risk vs. Risk (1995), and articles in diverse journals including the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Penn. Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, UCLA Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly, NYU Environmental Law Journal, Current Legal Problems, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Risk Analysis, Journal of Risk Research, Technology in Society, Conservation Biology, and Human & Experimental Toxicology.