Brooke Coleman named Fredric C. Tausend professor

September 7, 2022
Brooke Coleman standing outside near greenery
Brooke Coleman, Fredric C. Tausend Professor of Law Yosef Kalinko

Professor Brooke Coleman, who specializes in civil procedure and procedural justice, has been named the new Fredric C. Tausend Professor of Law. The professorship was previously held by Professor David Skover, who retired this year.

“I can think of no one better than Professor Coleman to carry on Dean Tausend’s legacy and the values that he so brilliantly exemplified,” said Dean Anthony E. Varona. “She is an award-winning master teacher celebrated by her students for command of the material and her classroom, and for how she combines rigor with accessibility and a keen interest in her students’ success.”

This professorship is named for Dean Tausend, who led the law school from 1980 to 1986 and is widely credited with strengthening the school’s commitment to social justice, academic excellence, and access to legal education, as well as diversity in education and the profession.

“Being a law professor was a dream I didn’t even know I could dream. I still have to pinch myself that I am able to teach our extraordinary students, write scholarship about the issues that matter most to me, work with an unparalleled staff, and find support and inspiration in my faculty colleagues,” Coleman said.

Coleman currently serves as special assistant to Natasha Martin, Seattle University’s vice president for diversity and inclusion. Prior to that role, she served as associate dean of research and faculty development at Seattle U Law, and as of July 1 of next year will assume the new role of our vice dean for academic affairs.

Her teaching interests include civil procedure, advanced litigation, and federal courts. She has received numerous honors for her teaching, including the 2020-2021 Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching for Tenure/Tenure Track Faculty, and the law school's Outstanding Faculty Award in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2020.

As a scholar, her work has been published in the New York University Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, William & Mary Law Review, and Boston College Law Review, among others. She is the co-editor of an anthology of critical legal perspectives, “A Guide to Civil Procedure: Integrating Critical Legal Perspectives,” and the lead author of an innovative civil procedure casebook, “Learning Civil Procedure.” She also co-founded the Civil Procedure Workshop.

Prior to joining the faculty of Seattle University, Coleman was a Thomas C. Grey Fellow at Stanford Law School. She also clerked for Judge David F. Levi, district judge in the Eastern District of California and then-chair of the Standing Committee on the Federal Rules of Practice and Procedure. Before her clerkship, she practiced as an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian in Palo Alto, California.

“I am grateful that I get to do this work every day. That I now get to do it as the Fredric C. Tausend Professor of Law — named for an incredible individual who was a lawyer, teacher, colleague, and leader — is an honor, and it inspires me to work even harder for our law school,” Coleman said.

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