Pictured Above, Left to Right: Nate Ela, Omeed Firouzi, Meghan Morris, Dara Purvis, Richard Winchester. Photo credit for Meghan Morris: Joseph Fuqua.
Temple Law School will welcome five faculty members, adding depth to the clinical and doctrinal programs and groundbreaking scholars to the faculty’s already exceptional ranks. “This is such an exciting time to be at Temple Law,” said Dean Rachel Rebouché. “Each of these five new faculty members will make tremendous contributions to our community through their teaching, scholarship, and advocacy. They are proven innovators whose leadership will offer our students wonderful new opportunities for academic and professional success.”
Joining Temple in the fall will be Nate Ela, Omeed Firouzi, and Meghan Morris. Richard Winchester will visit as the Beck Chair in spring 2024, and Dara Purvis will arrive in fall 2024. More on each new faculty member is below.
Nate Ela is a sociolegal scholar whose research focuses on the law and political economy of urban resilience, and on reforms to election law aimed at deepening American democracy. At Temple he will teach Land Use, Constitutional Law, and a seminar on election law. “I’m so excited to be joining the community at Temple Law,” remarked Professor Ela. It’s an honor to teach at a law school dedicated to making legal education affordable and broadly accessible. Since I study how we might improve the laws that govern our cities and our democracy, it’s also inspiring to do this work in Philadelphia—with all that there is to learn from the legal experiments people have thought up in this amazing city.”
Omeed Firouzi will lead Temple’s Low Income Taxpayer Clinic. He practiced as a staff attorney in the low income taxpayer clinic at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, representing low-income Philadelphians in IRS disputes, from 2018 to 2023. “I am very excited to be a part of the Temple Law community, as I am humbled to be among esteemed colleagues who are committed to service and zealous advocacy for people living in poverty,” said Professor Firouzi. “I am especially honored to have the opportunity to teach law students about public interest tax law, given how central the tax code has become for eradicating poverty, and to represent people across eastern Pennsylvania.”
Meghan Morris is a cultural anthropologist and legal scholar whose research examines the role of law in conflict and peacemaking. At Temple, she will teach Property, Natural Resources, and a seminar on property, race, and nature. “I am thrilled to join Temple Law and its vibrant community of students, faculty, and staff,” remarked Professor Morris. “As an interdisciplinary scholar with strong commitments to social justice, I could not be more excited to be a part of Temple’s public mission both within and beyond the law school.”
Richard Winchester will visit Temple Law as the Beck Chair in spring 2024. He is an award-winning teacher and a national expert on small business and employment tax policy, and he teaches and writes on tax, business law, and race and the law. “I’m thrilled to have the chance to join the community of scholars and students at Temple in the city where I got my start practicing law,” said Professor Winchester. “Philadelphia is where I spent a year clerking for Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., when he was Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. I also developed my interest in becoming a tax lawyer in the years that followed when I was an associate at Wolf, Block.”
Dara Purvis will join Temple Law in fall 2024. She teaches Family Law, Sexuality and the Law, and Contracts, and her research focuses on sexuality and gender in family law doctrines. She is particularly interested in the rights of transgender children and determinations of parentage. “I’m incredibly excited to be joining the vibrant community of scholars, advocates, and students at Temple Law,” Professor Purvis said. “Temple has an impressive concentration of faculty doing really valuable scholarship, particularly in areas of rights and equality that drive so many of us to enter law school in the first place.”