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Participants
Bernadette Atuahene Assistant Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Atuahene received a J.D. from Yale Law School, a M.P.A. from JFK School of Government and a B.A. from UCLA. She has varied experiences in the field of law and international development. She has worked as a legal consultant for the World Bank and as a human rights investigator for the Center for Economic and Social Rights, where she received Amnesty International’s Patrick Stewart Human Rights Award for her work with human rights organizations throughout South America. Professor Atuahene was in South Africa as a Fulbright Scholar. She served as a judicial clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, working for Justices Madala and Ngcobo. She then practiced as an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York, where she focused on sovereign debt and real estate transactions. Professor Atuahene joined the Chicago-Kent faculty in 2005. Broadly, her research deals with the confiscation and restitution of property. She teaches Law, Policy and International Development; Property; and International Business Transactions. Professor Atuahene has been appointed a Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation and she was selected to be a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow for 2008.

Barbara L. Bezdek Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law On the law faculty since 1988, Professor Bezdek combines her interest in the legal foundations of social change with her flair for helping students put theory into practice. She previously taught at the City University of New York Law School at Queens College and, as a graduate fellow, at the Georgetown University Law Center. As a public interest attorney in Washington, D.C., she represented tenants’ associations and housing cooperatives and litigated cases related to public health and safety issues and corporate responsibility. Professor Bezdek regularly teaches the clinical seminar, Legal Theory and Practice: Community Development. Students in the seminar assist clients in low-income communities by developing legal strategies that support the community’s own revitalization objectives. Professor Bezdek is founder and chairperson of the Faith Fund, Inc., a community development loan fund that lends in the Baltimore area in innovative ways to generate fair and inclusive housing and economic opportunity. In operation since 2003, the fund has made loans to a number of organizations such as The Sylvan Beach Foundation, which operates small businesses as a means of job training for disadvantaged youth and the Episcopal Housing Corporation, whichrenovates neglected housing stock and promotes homeownership.

Matthew T. Bodie Associate Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law Professor Bodie teaches and writes on corporate, contract, employment and labor law subjects at Saint Louis University School of Law. He has also worked in the fields of community reinvestment and land reform. After graduating from Princeton University in 1991, Professor Bodie worked in Chicago at the Woodstock Institute, a non-profit focused on fair lending and CRA compliance. He then joined Equity Trust and worked with Chuck Matthei in starting up the new organization. After a year at Equity Trust, Professor Bodie attended Harvard Law School, where he was an editor and social chair of the Harvard Law Review. He then served as a law clerk to Judge M. Blane Michael of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. From 1997 to 2000, he served as a field attorney in the New York office of the National Labor Relations Board, investigating and litigating unfair labor practice charges and conducting representation hearings and elections. He then taught at New York University School of Law as an acting assistant professor of lawyering and earned an LL.M. in Labor and Employment Law. Professor Bodie was an associate professor at Hofstra University School of Law from 2002 to 2007, where he taught Business Organizations, Contracts, Corporate Governance and Employment Law.

Sarah L. Coffin Assistant Professor of Public Policy Studies, Saint Louis University Dr. Coffin joined Saint Louis University's Department of Public Policy Studies in 2003 and specializes in environmental, land use and economic development planning issues. She teaches Planning the Metropolis, Land Use Analysis, Real Estate Finance and the Planning Studio course. She also advises planning students on their capstone projects. Her research interests include examining the impacts of brownfields, vacant properties, and more recently housing foreclosures on weak market economies and whether new ways of framing the redevelopment question might provide positive benefits for distressed communities. Additionally, Dr. Coffin is interested in understanding the connections between the green economy and global climate change policy. Specifically, she is exploring ways that the green collar jobs sector might work as a sustainable economic development strategy for weak market, former industrial cities. Dr. Coffin holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a master's degree in Urban Planning, Design and Development from Cleveland State University, and a bachelor of science degree in Business Administration from Lake Erie College.

Michael R. Diamond Professor of Law and Director, Harrison Institute for Housing and Community Development, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Diamond is the Director of Georgetown's Harrison Institute for Housing and Community Development and its Housing and Community Development Clinic. Prior to his arrival at the Law Center, Professor Diamond taught at American University's Washington College of Law and at Antioch University School of Law. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Puerto Rico and at Gonzaga Law School. He has taught Contracts, Business Associations, Property, Housing and Economic Development and has written extensively in these fields. He has served as a consultant to the American Bar Association, the Central and Eastern European Law Initiative on proposed housing laws in Russia and Bosnia and as a legal education specialist on a team conducting a mid-term evaluation of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Economic Law and Improved Procurement System project in Indonesia. He has also been of counsel to the law firm of O'Toole, Rothwell, Nassau, and Steinbach. He has authored books on corporations and real estate law and has written several articles on poverty, community, corporations and property.

Nancy H. Kaufman Professor of Law Saint Louis University School of Law Professor Kaufman honed her expertise in international law during her years of practice in Chicago and Washington, D.C. She handled international tax planning for U.S. and foreign-based multinational corporations and advocated in legislative and regulatory matters relating to international tax issues. In her research, Professor Kaufman examines the ways in which international income tax law effects a distribution of income tax revenue among countries. Her particular interest is in the impact of the international tax system on the treasuries of developing countries. After five years of private practice, Professor Kaufman joined Saint Louis University in 1989 and was director of the Center for International and Comparative Law from 2000 to 2002. In addition to her responsibilities at the School of Law, Professor Kaufman taught a course on income tax treaties for 10 years at the Institute of International Taxation of the Taiwanese Ministry of Finance, and lectured widely in the People's Republic of China.

James J. Kelly Jr. Assistant Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law Before joining the faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law, Professor Kelly worked as Executive Director of Save A Neighborhood, Inc. and Legal Consultant for Baltimore's Project 5000, to assist the city and community groups in acquiring clear title to vacant houses and vacant lots. He previously worked as a Staff Attorney for the Community Law Center, serving Baltimore nonprofits in their community revitalization efforts. Prior to moving to Baltimore in 1999, he also represented and counseled tenants and tenant groups for the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corp., where his work was funded by the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.

Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel Senior Research Scientist, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Wisconsin-Madison Dr. Lastarria-Cornhiel undertakes policy-oriented research on rural development issues such as land tenure, property privatization, land markets, land conflicts and the role of gender in rural development. Her research has taken place in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and South Asia. She is currently completing a research project on the socio-economic impact of rural finance institutions in Malawi, Kyrgyzstan and Andhra Pradesh, India. Recently, she was one of four principal investigators for a study on the gender outcomes of land titling and land privatization programs in Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Ghana and Laos.

Ngai Pindell Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law Professor Pindell earned his J.D. degree in 1996 from Harvard University, where he served as executive editor of the Harvard Black Letter Journal. After graduation, Professor Pindell practiced community development law in a nonprofit law firm in Baltimore, Md. He was later a fellow, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law where he taught the Community Development Clinic. Professor Pindell came to the Boyd School of Law in 2000, and is visiting at the Catholic University School of Law during the spring of 2009. His research interests are in economic development and housing, and he teaches Property, Land Use Regulation, Local Government Law and Wills, Trusts & Estates.

Peter W. Salsich Jr. McDonnell Professor of Justice in American Society, Saint Louis University School of Law Peter Salsich is the McDonnell Professor of Justice in American Society at Saint Louis University School of Law. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of Public Policy Studies and is a fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. He is a former editor of the ABA Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law, a former chair of the ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty and a former member of the Council of the ABA Section of Real Property, Probate & Trust Law. Professor Salsich was the first chair of the Missouri Housing Development Commission and chaired the board of directors of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri Inc. and the Ecumenical Housing Production Corp. (now Beyond Housing, Inc.). He teaches Property, Land Use Control, Local Government, Real Estate Transactions and Housing Law. He is author of Missouri Landlord-Tenant Relationship, and is co-author of casebooks on Land Use Regulation; Property Law; State and Local Government in a Federal System and State and Local Taxation and Finance in a Nutshell. He is the author of chapters in a casebook on housing law and a treatise on state and local government financing. He has published numerous articles and has been an active participant in CLE programs at the local, state and national levels.

Damon Y. Smith Assistant Professor, Rutgers University School of Law–Camden Professor Smith teaches local government and property law. His research focuses on the intersections of urban planning and property law, with an emphasis on local economic development and land use. Professor Smith joined the law school faculty from the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter LLP in 2005. He received his B.A. in English and Master of Urban Planning degrees from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School. Professor Smith taught urban ecology and urban planning as a traveling faculty member for the International Honors Program in 1999 and 2004. Prior to attending law school, Professor Smith worked as an urban planner in East St. Louis, Ill, focusing on community and economic development programs. The Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs named Professor Smith a Rand Faculty Fellow for 2005-2006.

Heather K. Way Director, Community Development Clinic, University of Texas School of Law Professor Way is a policy advocate and lawyer working on community development, housing, social equity and nonprofit organization issues. She is currently a faculty member and director of the Community Development Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. Professor Way’s primary focus has been working to improve the quality of life for low-income families in this country. Her recent policy work includes addressing abandoned land and title issues, land banks, opportunity-based housing, transit-oriented development districts and affordable housing preservation. Prior to joining the U.T. Law Faculty, Professor Way was the founder and director of Texas Community Building with Attorney Resources (Texas C-BAR), which provides free business law assistance to nonprofit organizations and community groups. Professor Way received her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable William Wayne Justice, Federal District Judge in Tyler and was then a Skadden Fellow at Legal Aid of Central Texas.

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