News 2019: New UMass Law faculty

James Freeley
Full-time lecturer

J.D., Boston College
M.B.A., Babson College
B.A., Wesleyan University

Courses: Legal Skills I & II; Professional Responsibility; Business Organizations

Prior position: Adjunct Professor and Interim Director of Academic Success, UMass Law

UMass Law Adjunct Professor of the Year 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

Member, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Bar Admissions Curriculum Committee

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Dustin Marlan teaches intellectual property and business law courses and directs the Community Development Clinic.

Professor Marlan’s current research explores the role and function of images and metaphors in intellectual property, particularly trademarks and personality rights. His scholarship has been published in the Washington Law Review, Lewis & Clark Law Review, and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and is forthcoming in the Hastings Law Journal and Gonzaga Law Review.

Professor Marlan previously served as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School, where he co-led the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project. Before entering academia, he practiced law at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC in Seattle, WA, and at K&L Gates LLP in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

J.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Law
B.A., Indiana University

Courses: Business Organizations; Community Development Clinic; Intellectual Property

Prior Position: Fellow, University of Michigan Law School Community Development Clinic

Recent publications:

• “Unmasking the Right of Publicity,” Hastings Law Journal (forthcoming, 2020)
• “Beyond Cannabis: Psychedelic Decriminalization and Social Justice,” Lewis & Clark Law Review (2019)
• “Visual Metaphor and Trademark Distinctiveness,” Washington Law Review (2018)

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Professor McCuskey joined the UMass Law faculty in 2019 as a nationally-recognized expert in health law and civil procedure. Her research focuses on regulatory reforms for health equity and courts’ roles in securing those reforms. Professor McCuskey has published her scholarship in legal academic journals including The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, The Ohio State Law Journal, Temple Law Review, Nevada Law Journal, and Nebraska Law Review, in addition to the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary Journal of Legal Medicine and N.Y.U. Review of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation. Her work on ERISA preemption and state health reform was featured on Health Affairs Blog and she has covered FDA preemption for SCOTUSBlog. The American Society for Law, Medicine, & Ethics selected Professor McCuskey as a 2016 Health Law Scholar and she serves as an adjunct of Saint Louis University’s Center for Health Law Studies.

An ardent believer in the power of public legal education, Professor McCuskey’s research informs her teaching in Civil Procedure, Health Law, Food & Drug Law, and Health Care Antitrust courses. Professor McCuskey also brings both academic and practice experience to the classroom. She previously directed the University of Toledo College of Law’s health law program and inter-professional joint degree programs combining law with medicine and public health. Before her academic career, Professor McCuskey practiced law with Drinker, Biddle, & Reath LLP, specializing in antitrust and appellate litigation for health care clients. In addition, she has served as a board member and advocate with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, a litigation assistant for Hale and Dorr LLP’s representation of Boston Scientific, an intern for then-Chief Judge David Faber on the U.S. District Court for the S.D.W.V., and a member of Advisory Committee to the U.S. District Court for the N.D.O.H.

J.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Law
B.A., University of Pennsylvania

Courses: Civil Procedure; Food & Drug Law; Health Law

Prior Position: Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law

Recent publications:

• “Federalism, ERISA, and Single-State Payer Health Care,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review (forthcoming, 2020)
• “On Drugs: Preemption, Presumption, & Remedy,” Journal of Legal Medicine (2018)
• “Agency Imprimatur & Health Reform Preemption,” Ohio State Law Journal (2017)

Danya Shocair Reda is an Assistant Professor at UMass Law. Professor Reda’s scholarship explores the relationship between procedure and inequality. Her research has examined the use of data in procedural and court reform, and the ways in which empirical claims may be used to reinforce existing hierarchies and justify reforms that enhance unequal access to the courts. Professor Reda’s research places discussions of court reform in global perspective, as an important tool for understanding both the nuances of procedural developments and their broader implications. Her scholarship examining these questions has been published in Fordham Law Review, the Review of Litigation, and Oregon Law Review, among others. She has been invited to speak on these topics all over the world including at the Seoul National University School of Law, Istanbul Sehir Universitesi, Hamad Bin Khalifa University School of law, and Peking University School of Law.

Professor Reda’s teaching is informed by her practice experience and research. She draws on her understanding of how courts operate, and the impact of their operation, in helping students master substantive doctrine and their deployment through the practical tools of a lawyer. At UMass Law, Professor Reda’s dedication to teaching and to public legal education come together in training future generations of UMass law students to meet the legal need they find in their communities and to tackle the legal problems that drive their passions. Prior to joining UMass Law, Professor Reda was associate professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law, and an acting assistant professor in the Lawyering Program at NYU School of Law. Professor Reda also served as a clerk for the Honorable Charles S. Haight, Jr., district judge in the Southern District of New York, and practiced as an attorney at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, LLP and Friedman, Kaplan, Seiler & Adelman LLP.

Professor Reda’s teaching interests include torts, civil procedure, comparative and Islamic law, and administrative law.

John Towers Rice joined the UMass Law faculty in 2019. He researches and presents on issues relating to legal skills, advocacy and dispute resolution, civil procedure, professional responsibility, and employment discrimination. He chaired the Tennessee Bar Association’s study on the adoption and implementation of the Uniform Bar Examination and currently serves as a member of the American Bar Association’s taskforce on law student debt and finance.

A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Professor Rice graduated from Clemson University in 2008, and then earned his law degree with a concentration in advocacy and dispute resolution from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville College of Law in 2012. During law school, Professor Rice competed on the Dean Jerome Price Evidence Moot Court Team and was one of ten law graduates nominated to the Order of the Barristers. The College of Law faculty recognized him with the ALI-ABA Scholarship and Leadership Award.

Prior to joining UMass Law, Professor Rice taught in the legal skills program at the University of Tennessee College of Law. He also served as a law clerk for the Supreme Court of Tennessee and was in private practice where he focused on professional liability defense, commercial and business disputes, probate and fiduciary litigation, workplace investigations, and appellate practice. He is a member of the American Bar Association and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He is admitted to the Tennessee and South Carolina Bars, as well as the bars for the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Middle Districts of Tennessee and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.