Professor Robin Paul Malloy is the E.I. White Chair and Distinguished Professor of Law, and the Kauffman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Syracuse University College of Law. He is a leading expert on property; land use law and zoning; real estate transactions; and on law, markets, and marketization. He has pioneered work on the intersections among of land use, zoning, and disability law. He is also recognized as a leading legal scholar on the jurisprudence of Adam Smith. Several of his works on market theory and law are translated into Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese. Malloy has published twenty books with two additional books in progress. Among his books are publications with Cambridge University Press, Carolina Academic Press, Aspen Law Publishing, and Edward Elgar. He has also authored numerous book chapters and scholarly articles. Three of his books, several book chapters, and multiple law review articles specifically address the complexity of enhancing the accessibility of our built environment when dealing with issues of land use and disability law.

In 2026, he will be a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Palermo, Italy; and has previously been Sun Life Research Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford University, U.K.; the Dickenson Dees Fellow at University of Durham, U.K.; and for three consecutive summers served as a teaching fellow in China (Beijing and Shanghai) with the Committee on Legal Education Exchange with China. He has served on the International Advisory Board for the Law and Economics Program at St. Gallens University, Switzerland; as a member of the Turin School of Local Regulation, Turin, Italy; and as a member of the multi-year Working Group on Law and Marketization at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Malloy is the founder and inaugural president of the Association for Law, Property, and Society. He served on the Board of the National Italian American Bar Association for 20 years, and was Vice Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeal for the Town of DeWitt, NY for 10 years. He has also served on numerous committees of the Association of American Law Schools.

Cora True-Frost the Bond, Schoeneck & King Distinguished Professor of Law at Syracuse University, specializing in constitutional law, international law, and human rights law. Her recent research focuses on the right to travel and disability law in the U.S. and Europe. Her articles have been published in leading journals, including the Michigan Journal of International Law and NYU Journal of International Law and Politics. She co-edited The First Global Prosecutor: Promise and Constraints with Martha Minow and Alex Whiting.

Her scholarship is informed by her experiences defending individuals accused of crimes against humanity, leading advocacy efforts at the UN, and parenting a child with disabilities. Her work spans topics such as international disability law, ICC prosecutions, terrorism, and UN Security Council practice.

True-Frost was named a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence in 2024 and has received multiple teaching awards, including the Lex Lucet Mundum Award. She directs Impunity Watch News and serves as Advisor of the Journal of International Law and Commerce and Director of the Journal of Global Rights and Organizations as well as the International Law Society.

As a Fulbright Research Scholar in Norway (2022-23), she worked in international disability law at the PluriCourts Centre at the University of Oslo. She has also taught in Poland, Brazil, and Italy and served on the New York Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (2015-2021).

Before academia, True-Frost founded the Women’s Justice Unit in East Timor and served as a legal consultant at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. She earned her J.D./M.P.A. magna cum laude at Syracuse University, where she was Lead Articles Editor of the Syracuse Law Review.

Katherine Macfarlane is Professor of Law and Director of the Syracuse University College of Law’s Disability Law and Policy Program. She teaches and writes about Disability Law, Civil Rights Litigation, and Constitutional Law. Professor Macfarlane previously served as Special Counsel to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, where she worked on the Department’s overhaul of the regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Prior to joining academia, Professor Macfarlane served as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the New York City Law Department and as an associate in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s Los Angeles and New York offices. After law school, she clerked for the District of Arizona and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Macfarlane has previously served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Disability Law and co-founded the first affinity group for disabled law professors and allies. She frequently presents and writes about students, lawyers, and professors with disabilities, and the challenges they face in obtaining reasonable accommodations. Professor Macfarlane has testified before the Louisiana Legislature and addressed the Congressional Arthritis Caucus in Washington, D.C. She is frequently quoted by media outlets, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Nation, NPR, and Bloomberg News. She received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Northwestern University, and her J.D., cum laude, from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. She is admitted to practice in California and New York and is fluent in Italian and Spanish. Professor Macfarlane was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis when she was 13 months old and identifies as a person with disabilities.

Michal Soffer is the head of the Master’s specialization track in social work with people with disabilities at the School of Social Work. She received a Bachelor of Social Work, a Master of Social Work and a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Soffer completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the Burton Blatt Institute, College of Law, Syracuse University. She received an Alon scholarship for outstanding young faculty by the Israeli Council for Higher Education.

Soffer has written articles on illness and disability-related stigma, disability-related policy,  and the social construction of illness, disability, and deviant phenomenon. She has co-authored a book on women prisoners in Israel and received grants to support her work.

Soffer was appointed Chair of the committee for expertise in Social Work with People with Disabilities by the Israeli Government (Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services).

 

Friend, collaborator, & BBI Senior Fellow passed March 2023. Larry Logue  worked extensively with BBI chairman Peter Blanck writing numerous books and articles together. He was also a frequent quest speaker for the Southeast ADA Center focusing on the History of Veterans and Disability.

Larry’s featured episodes and webinars include: Veterans, Employment and Disability: A Historical Perspective, The History of Disability, Lessons from the Past, and The History of Disabilities Webinar Series

Larry Logue came to BBI from Mississippi College, where he was professor of history and political science. He received a doctorate in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. Since winning the Francis and Emily Chipman Best First Book Award for A Sermon in the Desert: Belief and Behavior in Early St. George, Utah (University of Illinois Press), Dr. Logue has turned his interest to the experiences of soldiers and veterans of the Civil War. He is the author of To Appomattox and Beyond: The Civil War Soldier in War and Peace (Ivan R. Dee), and co-editor with Michael Barton of The Civil War Soldier: A Historical Reader and The Civil War Veteran: A Historical Reader (both New York University Press).

For the past decade, Dr. Logue and BBI chairman Peter Blanck have conducted research on Union army veterans’ experience with disabilities and with the federal government’s benefits. Building on articles investigating veterans’ longevity and African Americans’ treatment in the pension system, they co-authored Race, Ethnicity, and Disability: Veterans and Benefits in Post-Civil War America, and Heavy Laden: Union Veterans, Psychological Illness, and Suicide, volumes in Cambridge University Press’s Disability Law and Policy series. 

At BBI, Dr. Logue and Dr. Blanck continue to explore the role of disability in the life course of Civil War veterans. Their latest collaborations are “Before the Accommodation Principle: Disability and Employment Among Union Army Veterans,” published in the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, and “Civil War Veterans, Physicians, and Cancer,” forthcoming in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship.

Nanette Goodman is the former Research Director of BBI. She has over 20 years of experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research on disability policy issues in the U.S. and in low-and moderate-income countries. Through the lens of public policy development, she focuses on the economic disparities between people with and without disabilities in their financial stability, use of financial services and the extra costs of living with a disability. Prior taking on her role at BBI, Ms. Goodman was the Research Director at National Disability Institute and Daniels and Associates LLC, Research Associate at Center for Inclusive Policy, Sr. Policy Advisor at Office of Disability Employment Policy and a Research Associate at the Cornell University Institute for Policy Research. She has written book chapters, published in peer-reviewed journals, prepared reports for the National Council on Disability, and developed policy white papers.

Selected Publications, White Papers and Policy Briefs

• Hyseni, F., Goodman, N., & Blanck, P. (2024). Who Requests and Receives Workplace Accommodations? An Intersectional Analysis. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation. 2024 Mar 7. doi: 10.1007/s10926-024-10172-4.
• Blanck, P., Hyseni, F., Goodman, N. (2023). Economic Inclusion and Empowerment of People with Disabilities. In: Rioux, M.H., Viera, J., Buettgen, A., Zubrow, E. (eds) Handbook of Disability. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1278-7_81-1.
• Kline, R., Morris, M., Goodman, N., & Peter Blanck, P. (2022). Disability Reparations and the Modernization of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, The N.Y.U. Journal of Legislation and Public Policy 24, 377.
• Morris, M. & Goodman, N. (2021). Overcoming Systemic Financial Exclusion of People with Disabilities in CRA and CRA Modernization. In Boshara, R. & Rademacher, I. (Eds) The Future of Building Wealth: Brief Essays on the Best Ideas to Build Wealth—for Everyone. (pp105-112). US: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and The Aspen Institute.
• Morris, M. & Goodman, N. (2021). Rethink Public Policies to Support Income Production, Savings and Asset Accumulation for People with Disabilities. In Boshara, R. & Rademacher, I. (Eds) The Future of Building Wealth: Brief Essays on the Best Ideas to Build Wealth—for Everyone. (pp105-112). US: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and The Aspen Institute.
• Galinsky, E, Goodman, N., Kim, S.S. & Bond, J.T. (2020) Opportunities and Obstacles: Life On and Off the Job for Employees with Disabilities. Families and Work Institute.
• Morris, Z. A., McGarity, S. V., Goodman, N., & Zaidi, A. (2020). The Extra Costs Associated with Living with a Disability in the United States. Journal of Disability Policy Studies.
• Goodman, N, Morris, M, Morris, Z. and McGarity, S. (2020). The Extra Costs of Living with a Disability in the U.S.—Resetting the Policy Table. National Disability Institute, Policy Brief.
• National Disability Institute (2020). Race, Ethnicity and Disability: The Financial Impact of Systemic Inequality and Intersectionality. Authored by N. Goodman, S. Eager and M. Morris.
• Morris, M. Goodman, N. Baker, A., Palmore, K., and Blanck P. (2019) Closing the Disability Gap: Reforming the Community Reinvestment Act Regulatory Framework. Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law & Policy. Vol 26.
• Goodman, N. and M. Morris (2019) Banking Status and Financial Behaviors or Adults with Disabilities: Findings from the 2017 FDIC National Survey or Unbanked and Underbanked Households and Focus Group Research.  Washington DC: National Disability Institute.
• National Disability Institute (2018). Information Brief: Access to Credit for Adults with Disabilities. Authored by N. Goodman and M. Morris. Washington DC: National Disability Institute and FINRA Investor Education Foundation.
• National Disability Institute (2018). Information Brief: Addressing the Needs of Americans with Disabilities in Financial Capability Programs. Authored by N. Goodman, N. Canfield and M. Morris. Washington DC: National Disability Institute and FINRA Investor Education Foundation
• Goodman, N., B. O’Day and M. Morris (2017) Financial Capability of Adults with Disabilities: Findings from the National Financial Capability Study.  Washington DC: National Disability Institute and FINRA Investor Education Foundation
• Goodman, N. and M. Morris (2017) Financial Inequality: Disability, Race and Poverty in America.  Washington DC: National Disability Institute.
• Goodman, N. and M. Morris (2017) Banking Status and Financial Behaviors or Adults with Disabilities: Findings from the 2015 FDIC National Survey or Unbanked and Underbanked Households.  Washington DC: National Disability Institute.
• Goodman, N. and M. Morris (2015) Financing Employment Services for People with Disabilities when Everyone is the Payer of Last Resort. University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability. Rehabilitation and Research Training Center on Employment Policy
• Goodman, N (2015). The Impact of Employment on the Health Status and Health Care Costs of Working-age People with Disabilities. Washington DC: LEAD Center.
• Morris, M. and N. Goodman (2015). Integrating Financial Capability and Asset Building Strategies into the Public Workforce Development System. Washington DC: LEAD Center.
• Morris, M. and N. Goodman (2014) Impact of the Work Requirement in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) on Low-Income Working-Age People with Disabilities. University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability. Rehabilitation and Research Training Center on Employment Policy.
• Goodman, N and M. Morris (2014). Making Change with Incremental Steps: Modifying Adverse Incentives to Serving People with Disabilities in the TANF Program. University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability. Rehabilitation and Research Training Center on Employment Policy.
• Morris, M., N. Goodman and D. Brucker (2013) Use of the Earned Income Tax Credit Among People with Disabilities. University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability. Rehabilitation and Research Training Center on Employment Policy.
• Morris, M. and N. Goodman (2013) Creating Change with Incremental Steps: Enhancing Opportunities for Early Work Experience. University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability. Rehabilitation and Research Training Center on Employment Policy
• National Council on Disability (2012). Deinstitutionalization: Unfinished Business. Authored by B. Butz, N. Goodman, S. Allen and E. Piekalkiewicz.
• National Council on Disability (2011). Rising Expectations: The Developmental Disabilities Act Revisited.  Authored by S. Daniels, B. Butz, N. Goodman, and J. Kregel.
• National Council on Disability (2009). Invisible Wounds: Serving Service Members and Veterans with PTSD and TBI. Authored by N. Goodman.
• National Council on Disability (2008). National Disability Status and Program Performance Indicators. Authored by N. Goodman, B. O’Day, and A. Roche.
• Goodman, N, D.C. Stapleton, G Livermore and B. O’Day (2007). The Health Care Financing Maze for People with Disabilities. Cornell University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center for Economic Research on Employment Policy for People with Disabilities.
• Livermore, G., N. Goodman, F. Hooven, and L. Hashemi (2007). Premium Increases in State Health Insurance Programs: Lessons from a Case Study of the Massachusetts Medicaid Buy-in Program. Inquiry 44(4):428-442.
• Livermore, G., N. Goodman and D. Wright (2007) Social Security Disability Beneficiaries: Characteristics, Work Activity and Use of Services. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation. 27:85-93.
• Goodman, N. and D.C. Stapleton (2007). “Federal Program Expenditures for Working-age People with Disabilities.”  Journal of Disability Policy Studies. 18(2):66-78
• Goodman, N. and T. Waidmann. (2003). “The Role of Disability Insurance in Explaining the Decline in the Employment Rate of People with Disabilities” in The Decline in Employment of People with Disabilities: A Policy Puzzle.  David C. Stapleton and Richard V. Burkhauser eds.  W.E. Upjohn Institute.

Michael Waterstone was appointed the 18th dean and senior vice president of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Waterstone’s tenure began on June 1, 2016.

Waterstone is a leading scholar on the civil rights of persons with disabilities and an influential voice in the national disability community. He has published articles in top law reviews, authored a casebook, has testified before the United States Senate and has worked extensively with foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations internationally on disability laws. Waterstone previously served as the J. Howard Ziemann Fellow and professor of law at Loyola Law School.

Waterstone has taught at the University of Mississippi Law School, the University of Haifa and Northwestern Pritzker Law School. Daniel Rodriguez, dean and Harold Washington Professor of Law at Northwestern said, “Professor Waterstone’s appointment as Loyola’s next dean is a great decision by an ambitious law school. I am confident he will be a supremely successful leader for the school in this dynamic new era.”

Prior to his academic appointments, Waterstone practiced law in Los Angeles at Munger, Tolles & Olson, LLP. According to Glenn Pomerantz, a partner at the firm, “I was lucky to work closely with Michael when he was part of our law firm, and I know he is an outstanding lawyer with great judgment and people skills. Michael is well-known and highly respected across the Los Angeles legal community. Loyola has made an absolutely fantastic choice for its next dean.”

Waterstone joined Loyola’s faculty in 2006, and from 2009 to 2014 he served as associate dean for research and academic centers. He helped develop an ambitious networking program for first-year students that was recognized by PreLaw Magazine as one of the most innovative programs of the year. He has held appointments in both the California Bar and American Bar Association focusing on diversity issues. He clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for the Honorable Richard S. Arnold.

A native of Los Angeles, Waterstone earned his law degree in 1999 from Harvard Law School and his B.A. in political science from U.C.L.A.

Delia Ferri is a Professor of Law at Maynooth University and co-Director of the ALL Institute. She is also an affiliated researcher at the DIRPOLIS Institute (Institute of Law, Politics and Development) of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Italy) within the research cluster on social rights, social inclusion and disability, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) Standing Committee in International Affairs (SCIA). Recently, she was Visiting Professor at the Academia Interamericana de Derechos Humanos of the Autnomous University of Coahuila.

Delia has published extensively in the fields of International and Comparative Disability Law and European Union Law. She has recently co-authored the first academic textbook on International and European disability law (together with Dr. Andrea Broderick, Maastricht University), published by Cambridge University Press in 2019. Moreover, since 2004, Delia has taken part into different academic research projects and policy-oriented studies on the rights of persons with disabilities, participatory processes and cultural diversity.

In December 2019, Delia has been awarded a prominent European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant of €2 million to undertake a research project entitled Protecting the Right to Culture of Persons with Disabilities and Enhancing Cultural Diversity through European Union Law: Exploring New Paths. She is also co-investigator in the project SHAPES, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and led by the ALL Institute. Her research in this project focuses on regulatory frameworks to support independence and enhanced quality of life for older people, in particular older people with disabilities. She also holds a position of co-investigator in the project Rethinking Digital Copyright Law for a Culturally Diverse, Accessible, Creative Europe (ReCreating Europe), led by Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa, by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme. Within this project, Delia investigates access to digital cultural goods for people with disabilities, from an intersectional perspective.

Delia holds a J.D. in Law awarded 110/110 magna cum laude from the University of Verona School of Law (Italy), a LL.M. in International and European Business Law awarded First Class Honours with Distinction from Trinity College Dublin, a Doctorate in European and Italian Constitutional Law from the University of Verona (Italy), and a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education (PGDHE) from Maynooth University. Delia is also a qualified attorney at law (Avvocato), enrolled at the Verona Bar since 2008.

Visit Delia Ferri’s Maynooth University Profile

Donna-Marie McNamara, has been appointed a Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) Visiting Fellow during Fall 2016. Donna is currently a PhD candidate from Dublin City University. She received the DCU School of Law and Government PhD Scholarship to conduct doctoral research which considers the rights of suspects with cognitive disabilities in the Irish criminal justice system. Her research looks at using the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a tool of law reform within the pre-trial criminal justice process and identifying obstacles in the criminal process for suspects with cognitive disabilities in light of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. She is particularly interested in how to support suspects with intellectual disabilities and mental health illnesses during the arrest, police interrogation and pre-trial detention phases. During her time in Syracuse she anticipates looking at the reasonable accommodation provision and examining the relationship in her work.

Donna’s interests lie broadly in the areas of disability law, mental health law, children’s rights, human rights law and criminal justice. She also has a particular interest in the rights of children living in alternative forms of care and examined this as part of her LLM thesis, entitled ‘Child Participation in Irish Foster Care Proceedings: Assessing Ireland’s Compliance with Article 12 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.’

Donna graduated with a BCL (Law and Society) degree from Dublin City University in 2013 and achieved an LLM (First Class Honours) from University College Cork in 2014. She was a recipient of the UCC Faculty of Law Scholarship and worked as a legal research assistant to Dr Mary Donnelly.

In the News
BBI International Fellow, Donna McNamara, writes about Ireland’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Publications
‘The Right of the Child to be Heard: The Case for Child Participation in Foster Care Proceedings’ (2016) 19 TCD Law Review

Conferences
Donna-Marie McNamara, The Detention of Mentally Disordered Offenders in Ireland: Evolution and Contemporary Challenges, European Society of Criminology Conference, 02-September 2015 – 05 September 2015, Porto

Donna-Marie McNamara, The Role of the Mental Health (Criminal Law) Review Board in Ireland, 7th Annual Postgraduate Criminology Conference, 31 August 2015, Queens University Belfast

Research
Copy-Editor, The Routledge Handbook of Irish Criminology, March – April 2015

(Dr Yvonne Marie Daly, Dr Deirdre Healy, Dr Claire Hamilton, Dr Michelle Butler (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Irish Criminology, Routledge, 2015)