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Announcing Alabama’s Fall 2010 Visiting Professors of Law

June 10, 2010

The Law School welcomes a distinguished slate of visiting professors who will teach at Alabama during the fall 2010 semester. These include: the former president of Israel’s Supreme Court, the former vice president of Israel’s National Labor Court, a leading legal advocate of fair labor standards for migrant farmworkers, the current vice dean of the Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University, an Oxford University graduate who is an expert on Civil Procedure, and one of today’s preeminent voices on Biomedical Ethics and Health Care Law.
Aharon Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court of Israel, will return to Alabama Law this fall. He will teach a course on Proportionality, which is the same course he teaches at Yale Law School. President Barak was named dean of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law in 1974, served as Israel’s attorney general from 1975 to 1978, was appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel in 1978 and served as its president from 1995 to 2006. He delivered the Law School’s fall 2007 Albritton Lecture.

Elisheva Barak, the former vice president of Israel’s National Labor Court, will also return to Alabama Law this fall to teach a mini-course on Comparative Labor Law. From 1976 to 1978, Judge Barak clerked for the president of the Supreme Court of Israel, Justice Joel Sussman, and served as a legal assistant to the Court’s three subsequent presidents. In 1987, she was appointed registrar of the Regional Labor Court in Jerusalem, and in 1990, became a judge both there and in the Beersheba Regional Labor Court. She was appointed as judge in the National Labor Court in 1995 and named vice president of the Court in 2000.

William S. Geimer is a professor of law – emeritus at the Washington & Lee University School of Law. Before accepting a faculty appointment there, he was the executive director of Farmworkers Legal Services of North Carolina. He was responsible for 40,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers and focused on federal court litigation involving the Fair Labor Standards Act, Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act and the federal peonage statutes. Professor Geimer will teach Poverty Law this fall at Alabama.

Sharon Hannes, vice dean of the Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and head of the Tel Aviv – Berkeley Executive LL.M. Program, will teach a mini-course at Alabama Law on Corporate Theory. Professor Hannes holds an S.J.D. from Harvard Law School and was a recipient of the Byse Fellowship. He also holds an LL.B. and a B.A. in Accounting from Tel-Aviv University, as well as an LL.M. in Corporate Studies from New York University Law School, where he was a recipient of the Hauser Global Fellowship.

Robert Pfeffer was previously an attorney at the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He clerked for the Honorable John Coffey in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Professor Pfeffer will teach Civil Procedure and Criminal Procedure at Alabama during the fall 2010 semester. He received his B.A. in Economics and his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Chicago. He also holds an M.S. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Oxford University.

Robin Fretwell Wilson, a member of the Washington & Lee University law faculty, will teach a mini-course at Alabama in Biomedical Ethics. She earned her law degree from the University of Virginia, where she was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. Professor Wilson clerked for the Honorable E. Grady Jolly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She also practiced law, focusing primarily on Health Care Law, at the law firms of Fulbright & Jaworski and Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton. Professor Wilson is the editor of four volumes on the topics of Insurance and Biomedical Ethics, and she has published articles in the Cornell Law Review, Emory Law Journal, North Carolina Law Review and San Diego Law Review, as well as many others.


The University of Alabama School of Law strives to remain neutral on issues of public policy. The Law School’s communications team may facilitate interviews or share opinions expressed by faculty, staff, students, or other individuals regarding policy matters. However, those opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Law School, the University, or affiliated leadership.