Faculty

Professor Philip Weinberg
Professor of Law. A.B., University of Pennsylvania; J.D., Columbia University

Professor Weinberg is the author of Environmental Law: Cases and Materials (3dEd.) (University Press of America, 2006), co-editor of Environmental Law and Regulation in New York (West 1996), co-author of Environmental Impact Review in New York (Matthew Bender, 1990) and Understanding Environmental Law (LexisNexis, 2007), and editor-in-chief of the Macmillan Compendium: The Supreme Court (1999). He writes the Annual Practice Commentaries for McKinney's New York Environmental Conservation Law and has also published numerous articles on environmental law and constitutional law.

Prior to joining the law faculty, Professor Weinberg practiced for twenty years in the New York State Attorney General's Office and was Assistant Attorney General in Charge of the Environmental Protection Bureau. He has been actively involved in many governmental studies and was Chair of the Freshwater Wetlands Advisory Committee to the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Professor Weinberg has chaired the New York State Bar Association's Environmental Law Section; the Committees on Environmental Law, International Environmental Law and Transportation Law of the New York City Bar Association, and the Environmental Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools.  He has written and spoken extensively on environmental issues, and appeared on television and radio to discuss both constitutional and environmental issues. Prof. Weinberg will teach International Environmental Law.

Professor Ettie Ward
Professor of Law. B.A., Barnard College; J.D., Columbia University

Before joining the law faculty at St. John’s, Professor Ward was a litigator in a major New York law firm.  While in private practice, she litigated complex securities, labor, fraud, contract, and other commercial cases in state and federal courts.

Professor Ward received her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar each year and a member of the Columbia Law Review.  She received her B.A, cum laude, from Barnard College in three years and was on the Dean’s List for all three years.

Professor Ward has been active in the Federal Bar Council, the American Bar Association, the City Bar of New York, and the New York State Bar Association.  She is a currently a member of the Program Committee of the Federal Bar Council and a Director of the Federal Bar Foundation.  She has served on the Federal Courts, the Litigation, and the Legal Educations Committees of the City Bar Association.  She has been co-chair of various subcommittees and has been a member of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section and has served on the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee of the New York State Bar Association.  She has recently joined the Executive Board of the AALS Dispute Resolution Section.

Other professional activities have included participation as a member of the Advisory Group to the United States Delegation to the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments and membership on Second Circuit Committees.
In addition to her bar and professional association activities, Professor Ward is a practicing mediator who currently serves as a pro bono mediator in federal district court.  She has previously done pro bono state court mediations as well. 
She teaches and writes primarily in the areas of federal civil procedure and court process.  Professor Ward teaches Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, International Litigation Procedure, Federal Practice, Torts, and Introduction to Law.

Professor Mark L. Movsesian
Professor of Law. B.A., Harvard College; J.D., Harvard Law School

Professor Movsesian joined the St. John’s faculty in 2007 as the Frederick A. Whitney Professor of Contract Law.  He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.  In law school, he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a recipient of the Sears Prize, awarded to the two highest-ranking students in the second-year class.  Following law school, he clerked for Fourth Circuit Chief Judge Harrison L. Winter, served as an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of the Justice, and then clerked for Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Professor Movsesian writes in contracts and international law.  His articles have appeared in the Harvard, North Carolina, and Washington & Lee Law Reviews, the Harvard International Law Journal, the Virginia Journal of International Law, and many others.  He has been a visiting professor at Notre Dame and Cardozo Law Schools and has delivered papers at numerous workshops in the United States and Europe.  Before starting at St. John's, he was the Max Schmertz Distinguished Professor of Law at Hofstra, where he was named Teacher of the Year a number of times, most recently in 2006.  He teaches Contracts, International Law courses, and Comparative Law & Religion.

Professor C. Mario Russell
Adjunct Professor. B.A., Haverford College; J.D., University of Maryland School of Law

Professor Russell teaches and supervises the Refugee and Immigrant Rights Clinic at St. John’s Law School.  He conducts and supervises federal administrative and U.S. Court of Appeals litigation on questions of international and constitutional law involving asylum seekers and immigrants. He also has served as a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Hungary and Poland and has advised the National Commission on Migration in Thailand.

In conjunction with the NYSCC  Public Policy Committee and the New York Immigration Coalition, Professor Russell also conducts legislative advocacy on issues such as comprehensive immigration reform and other refugee protection issues. Previously, he has served as Regional Director for CLINIC, where he provided technical and litigation support to NGOs throughout the United States, he has worked as a litigation associate at Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin and Kahn, and he served for two years as judicial law clerk on the U.S. District Court. Professor Russell is a frequent lecturer and panelist on refugee and constitutional law litigation at conferences and trainings by organizations such as the New York City Bar Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He has authored articles for publication in journals such as Interpreter Releases and written chapters in manuals issued by CLINIC and Doctors of the World.

Professor Russell is Senior Attorney, Catholic Charities, Refugee and Immigration Legal Services; Harvard Law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow (2007-2008); Adjunct Professor, St. John’s School of Law, Refugee and Immigrant Rights Clinic; B.A. (Philosophy), Haverford College; J.D. (Order of the Coif), University of Maryland School of Law.

Professor Linda Ferreri
Adjunct Professor. B.A., Duke University; M.A., New York University; J.D., University of Tulsa

Professor Ferreri teaches International and Cultural Art Law at University of North Carolina, Asheville. She taught this course as well at the University of California Los Angeles Law School and at the University of California at Berkeley Extension. She frequently lectures on Art Law and European History throughout the U.S. in consideration of her experience in this field. She worked as consultant to the UNESCO Division of Cultural Heritage, Paris, as Senior Vice President/General Counsel, Christie’s Inc., New York, as General Counsel of The J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles and as associate with prominent law firms. Professor Ferreri was also a member of the United States government delegation to multilateral treaty negotiations on UNIDROIT convention for return and repatriation of stolen and illegally exported cultural property in Rome.

Professor Ferreri has served as the Chair of the Art and Cultural Property Law Committee of the International Bar Association. She has written extensively on this subject.

Professor Ferreri holds a B.A. from Duke University and M.A. from New York University and a J.D. from the University of Tulsa.

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