CATALOG 2006-2007 - Syracuse University College of Law

William C. Banks
Peter A. Bell
William C. Banks
Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor
for Teaching Excellence
Board of Advisors Professor of Law
Professor of Public Administration
Director, Institute for National Security and
Counterterrorism
B.A., University of Nebraska
M.S., J.D., University of Denver
Professor Banks is recognized internationally
as an expert on constitutional and national
security law. Since 1987, when the Federation of
American Scientists asked him to provide a legal
perspective on the first use of nuclear weapons,
Banks has helped set the parameters for the
relatively new field of national security law.
Working with Steven Dycus, Arthur Berney
and Peter Raven-Hansen, Banks wrote the
definitive text in the field. National Security
Law was first published in 1990 and is now
in its third edition. Professor Banks lectures
extensively on these and other national
security and constitutional law-related
topics and on comparative legal systems
throughout the United States and Canada
as well as in South and Central America, the
Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Banks’
current research interests include domestic
and international terrorism, emergency
powers, covert war powers, problems of
official corruption, civil/military relations, and
appropriations powers.
Professor Banks served as special counsel
to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in
1994 and worked with the committee on the
confirmation hearings for Supreme Court
nominee Stephen G. Breyer.
Peter A. Bell
Professor of Law
B.A., Wesleyan University
J.D., Stanford University
After graduation from law school, where he
was an editor of the Stanford Law Review,
Professor Bell served as a law clerk to a
U.S. district judge in Philadelphia, practiced
law for a leading Washington law firm, and
represented the impoverished throughout New
York State as an attorney with a statewide legal
services backup center. He writes extensively
on tort law and theory, health law and patients’
rights, and the interface between law and
science. He is past-president of the board of
directors of the Central New York chapter of
the New York Civil Liberties Union. During
the 1987-88 academic year, Professor Bell
was a Fulbright Professor of Law at Wuhan
University, People’s Republic of China. During
the 1995-96 academic year, he served as
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at
Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana in Salatiga,
Central Java, Indonesia. His latest book is
Accidental Justice: The Dilemmas of Tort Law (Yale
University Press).
Leslie Bender
Peter Blanck
Leslie Bender
Board of Advisors Professor of Law
B.A., Chatham College
J.D., University of Pittsburgh
LL.M., Harvard University
Professor Bender graduated Phi Beta Kappa
from Chatham College and magna cum laude
from the University of Pittsburgh School of
Law. She served as a law clerk for Justice Sam
Harshbarger, Chief Justice of the West Virginia
Supreme Court, and as an assistant attorney
general, Antitrust Division, West Virginia
Attorney General’s Office. After five years of
practice, she returned to school and received
an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. Professor
Bender taught at Ohio Northern University Law
School and Washington and Lee Law School.
She was a Research Fellow at the Five Colleges
Women’s Studies Research Center in
Massachusetts and a Visiting Scholar at the
University of Arizona Law School, where she
also taught. Professor Bender publishes articles
on tort law, feminist legal theory, bioethics,
civil rights, legal education, and constitutional
law. She is co-author, with Daan Braveman, of
Power, Privilege, and Law: A Civil Rights Reader.
Peter Blanck
University Professor
B.A., University of Rochester
Ph.D., Harvard University
J.D., Stanford University
Professor Blanck is University Professor at
Syracuse University, which is the highest
faculty rank, granted to only nine individuals
in the history of the University. He is chair of
the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse
University. In addition to his appointment at
Syracuse University College of Law, Professor
Blanck holds appointments at the College of
Arts and Sciences, the School of Education,
the College of Human Services and Health
Professions, and the Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs. Blanck has
written more than 125 articles and books on
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and
related laws, received grants to study disability
law and policy, represented clients before the
U.S. Supreme Court in ADA cases, and testified
before Congress. His work has received
national and international attention. He is a
board member of the National Organization on
Disability (N.O.D.), Disability Rights Advocates
(DRA), and the Disability Rights Legal Center
(DRLC). His recent writings include a treatise
and casebook on disability civil rights law and
policy. At Stanford Law School, Blanck was
president of the Stanford Law Review. Blanck is
a former member of the President’s Committee
on Employment of People with Disabilities,
former Senior Fellow of the Annenberg
Washington Program, former Fellow at
Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School,
and a Mary Switzer Scholar.
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