Fordham Law School is proud to welcome five new faculty members: Robin Effron, Jamie Grischkan, Katherine Hughes, Jane Manners, and Adam D. Orford. These scholars and teachers bring a range of expertise to the Law School, including in civil procedure, financial regulation, non-profit and social enterprise law, legal history, and environmental law. Their appointments reflect Fordham’s ongoing commitment to academic excellence, shaping legal discourse, and preparing students to meet the evolving landscape of the legal profession.
“We are thrilled to welcome this exceptional group of faculty to Fordham,” said Dean Joseph Landau. “They bring deep expertise to enrich our scholarly mission and a strong commitment to excellence in the classroom. We look forward to their arrival with great anticipation.”
Robin Effron is an expert on civil procedure and complex litigation. Prior to joining Fordham Law as a professor, Effron was a professor of law and dean’s research scholar at Brooklyn Law School, where she taught Civil Procedure, Complex Litigation, and upper level courses in Contracts and International Business Law. Her scholarship focuses on civil procedure, complex litigation, and federal courts, and has been published in journals such as Notre Dame Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Boston University Law Review, and New York University Law Review. An elected member of the American Law Institute, she is the co-author of two casebooks on civil procedure and complex litigation, and is routinely cited by courts in the United States and abroad. At Brooklyn Law, Effron co-directed the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law. Before joining academia, she clerked for Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and studied law in Germany as a fellow in the DAAD Program for International Lawyers. Effron earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law and her B.A. from Barnard College.
Joining Fordham Law as an associate professor, Jamie Grischkan is a legal scholar and historian of financial regulation and antimonopoly law and policy. Before joining Fordham Law, Grischkan was an associate professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. She previously served as the Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History at New York University School of Law and the Raoul Berger-Mark DeWolfe Howe Legal History Fellow at Harvard Law School. Grischkan’s work explores the rise and regulation of bank holding companies in the twentieth century, the relationship between antitrust law and financial regulation, and the historical development of the American antimonopoly tradition. Her recent scholarship has appeared in an edited volume, Antimonopoly and American Democracy, and the University of Illinois Law Review. Prior to entering academia, Grischkan worked as a corporate associate at Paul Hastings LLP, focusing on private equity transactions and corporate governance. After earning her B.A. from Duke University, she earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her Ph.D. in history from Boston University.
Katherine Hughes ’08, who joins Fordham Law as a clinical professor and director of the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, is a leader in nonprofit, small business, and social enterprise law and practice in New York City. Prior to joining Fordham, she served as pro bono counsel and global director of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton’s pro bono program. An accomplished transactional attorney with many years of experience working with and supervising junior attorneys, she has served as the co-chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Non-Profit Organizations Committee and as a program committee member of the New York University Grunin Center’s annual conference on Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing. For her pro bono work on behalf of nonprofits and social enterprises, she has been recognized by Lawyers Alliance for New York and named a Trailblazer by The New York Law Journal. Hughes brings considerable teaching experience, including co-teaching seminars and supervising students in Fordham’s Community Economic Development Clinic and legal writing program for many years. Hughes also clerked for Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. She is a graduate of Fordham Law, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Fordham Law Review and received the Joseph R. Crowley Award for public service and academic achievement, the Archibald R. Murray Public Service Award for public service contributions, and the Fordham Law School prize for the student with the highest GPA in their first-year section. Hughes also earned an M.A. in international political economy and development at Fordham and an M.Sc. in race and ethnic relations from the University of London. She received her B.F.A. from Emerson College.
Jane Manners joins Fordham Law as an associate professor. A legal historian who teaches Torts, Legislation and Regulation, and American Legal History, her scholarship centers on 19th Century constitutional history, specifically focusing on congressional and presidential powers. She has written on the development of congressional petitioning, early American understandings of the president’s war powers, and the evolution of laws governing officer removal. Her scholarship has appeared in both the Fordham Law Review and the Columbia Law Review, among other publications. Prior to joining Fordham Law, she was an assistant professor at Temple University and served as a fellow at New York University School of Law, Columbia Law School, and The New York Historical. Manners earned her J.D. and B.A. from Harvard University, and she holds a Ph.D. in American history from Princeton University. She clerked for Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Adam D. Orford is joining Fordham Law as an associate professor. He is an expert on climate change, clean energy, and environmental law and policy. His interdisciplinary research focuses on legal strategies for deep decarbonization of the global industrial economy, with work examining clean energy development, carbon credit trading, and the regulatory frameworks governing greenhouse gas emissions. Orford’s scholarship has appeared in Ecology Law Quarterly, the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, the Georgetown Environmental Law Review, and the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. Previously, he was an assistant professor of law at the University of Georgia School of Law where he taught Environmental Law, Renewable Energy Law & Policy, and a Climate Change Law seminar. Before entering academia, Orford practiced in environmental and regulatory litigation, representing both public and private clients. After earning his B.A. from Arizona State University, he earned his J.D. at Columbia Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. Orford holds an M.P.P. and a Ph.D. in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley.
