Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law

Dr. Sarah Barringer Gordon is the new Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and professor of history. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Arlin M. Adams, then of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, before coming to Penn in 1994, and she shares his dedication to first amendment issues. She holds a B.A. from Vassar, a J.D. and M.A.R. from Yale, and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton. Dr. Gordon is a recognized scholar and commentator on religion in American history and law, and the constitutional law of church and state. She is widely published in journals and her book, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America, won the Mormon History Association and Utah Historical Society’s Best Book Awards for 2002 and 2003. She is working on a new book, The Spirit of the Law: Religion and Litigation in the Twentieth Century, forthcoming from Harvard University Press.   She is also the recipient of numerous prizes and fellowships and spent the 2004-2005 academic year at University College London.

Dr. Gordon is a trustee of Vassar College, and serves on the boards of the American Society for Legal History, the Mormon History Association, the Cromwell Foundation, and on the advisory board of the National Constitution Center. She served as associate dean of academic affairs of the Law School, 2000-02 and has been a frequent guest on news and talk shows. 

Theodore K. Warner Professor of Law

Dr. Michael Knoll is the new Theodore K. Warner Professor of Law and professor of real estate. He began his academic career in 1990 at the University of Southern California Law School. He joined Penn Law in 2000 when he was also appointed to the faculty in Wharton’s Real Estate department. Dr. Knoll, who holds a Ph.D. in economics as well as a J.D. (both from the University of Chicago) is known for applying finance principles in order to understand the flaws in the existing tax system and to generate proposals for how that system could be redesigned. He has published widely with articles appearing in many top law reviews and in peer-reviewed journals, and his opinion pieces have appeared in national newspapers.  

Dr. Knoll began his legal career at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), where he helped develop an economic and legal analysis for antidumping and countervailing duty cases.  That analysis, which is still used in the United States and has been adopted abroad, has become a focal point in the debate on the proper enforcement of the unfair trade practices regime, and has produced a large and growing literature. He also was in private practice and clerked for the Hon. Alex Kozinki of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before entering academia.

At Penn, Dr. Knoll has developed several innovative cross-disciplinary classes that he co-teaches with a faculty member from Wharton.  He has just completed service as the associate dean of the Law School and was the Earle Hepburn Professor of Law.

Robert Mundheim Professor of Law

Dr. Amy Wax is the new Robert Mundheim Professor of Law. She earned her B.S. from Yale, her M.D. from Harvard and her J.D. from Columbia. Before entering law school, Dr. Wax was a consulting neurologist; after law school, she was a law clerk to the Hon. Abner J. Mikva, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She then worked in the Office of the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, where she argued 15 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She joined Penn Law in 2001 after teaching for seven years at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Dr. Wax’s scholarship addresses issues in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. By bringing to bear her training in biomedical sciences and appellate practice and her interest in economic analysis, she has developed a unique approach to problems in her area of expertise.

Dr. Wax has published widely in law journals, including Chicago, Virginia, Villanova, Indiana, Emory, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law, the Yale Journal on Regulation, and the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. Her Op-Ed articles about topical issues have been featured in The Wall Street Journal and she has appeared on television. She received the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course last year.