Published: Aug. 13, 2024

Colorado Law is thrilled to announce our newest Associate Dean, along with our Professorship/Chair Holders and Directors. These five individuals already bring their valuable expertise, leadership, and scholarship to our faculty, and we look forward to the impact they will have in the following roles. Please join us in extending our sincerest congratulations to them.

Michael Pappas

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research, John H. Schultz Energy and Natural Resources Law Fellow Michael Pappas

teaches primarily in the areas of property, natural resources, and environmental law. His scholarship draws upon interdisciplinary influences associated with economics and political economy, and his work explores the nature of property expectations, governmental responsibilities, and private rights in managing resources such as land, energy, water, wildlife, fisheries, and food.

Pappas shared: “We have an incredibly active, dynamic faculty with a huge range of expertise [at Colorado Law]. Across so many important subjects, my colleagues are respected scholars and thought leaders, engaged public servants, and committed teachers and mentors. I am honored to begin as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research. In particular, I am excited to support our faculty members’ excellence in their areas of study while also providing opportunities for our faculty to come together, share ideas across disciplines, and continue advancing the law school’s rich intellectual life.”

Deep Gulasekaram

Faculty Director, Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law deep

teaches Constitutional Law and Immigration Law. His research focuses on the constitutional rights of noncitizens and federalism concerns in immigration law. In addition to his scholarly publications, Professor Gulasekaram frequently comments on constitutional and immigration developments for national media outlets, and contributes pieces for the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, and SCOTUSblog, among other outlets.

“I feel deeply honored to be appointed as Director of the Byron White Center, and to know that I have the confidence of the Dean and my colleagues in taking on that role,” Gulasekaram shared. “I look forward to continuing the great work of my predecessor, Suzette Malveaux, and her expansive vision for the center’s events and speakers. I am excited to share the BWC’s programming with the law school, alumni, and local communities. Now more than ever, we the people must be informed, educated, and thoughtful about what our Constitution means in our pluralistic society.”

Doug Spencer Doug Spencer

Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law

Doug is an election law scholar whose research addresses the role of prejudice and racial attitudes in voting rights litigation, the empirical implications of various campaign finance regulations, and the ways that election rules and political campaigns contribute to growing inequality in America.

“It is an incredible honor to be the Rothgerber Chair in Constitutional Law,” Spencer said. “Given the amazing life and legacy of Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr. and the impressive scholars who have held this chair before me, I also understand that this recognition bestows on me an important responsibility to continue producing impactful scholarship and to deeply invest in the education of our students on a topic that impacts their own sense of citizenship and public service.”

Andrew Schwartz

Laurence W. DeMuth Chair Andrew

teaches and publishes on corporate, securities and contract law, and has become an internationally recognized expert on investment crowdfunding. In 2017, Professor Schwartz served as a Fulbright Research Scholar and visiting professor at the University of Auckland Law School in New Zealand.

“I am honored to be selected as the second Laurence W. DeMuth Chair of Business Law, and I feel a special affinity with the namesake, who was a law professor here at the University of Colorado Law School.” Schwartz said. “He joined the faculty in 1928—exactly eighty years before I did—and served on our faculty until his retirement in 1961. Plus, his three sons, and one grandson, are all Colorado Law alumni. What a legacy!”

Todd Stafford

Faculty Director of the Master of Laws (LL.M.) Program todd staffor

has been a member of the Colorado Law faculty since 2000, and has been teaching legal writing and a variety of other courses at CU Law for nearly 25 years. Since the inception of the LL.M. program, he’s been teaching its foundational Introduction to United States Law course. He served as the program’s faculty director for several years, then took a break while he was a visiting professor last year at UC Irvine School of Law.

“I’m so happy to be returning as Director of the LL.M. Program,” Stafford said. “I’m most excited about working again with this group of students. They’re already lawyers in other countries, many of which are not common law jurisdictions, so I find that they have as much to teach us as we have to teach them. I enjoy learning of their stories in their admissions files, then meeting them in August and getting to know them in class and at social programming as the year progresses. They’re eager to learn and share, and they add tremendously to the diversity of our community.”