New Full-Time Faculty

PROFESSOR OF LAW JOYCE LEE MALCOLM is a historian and constitutional scholar active in the area of constitutional history, focusing on the development of individual rights in Great Britain and America. She has written many books and articles on gun control, the Second Amendment, and individual rights.

Professor Malcolm has previously taught at Princeton University, Bentley College, Boston University, Northeastern University and Cambridge University.  She was also a Senior Advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program, a Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, and is a Bye Fellow at Robinson College, Cambridge University.

She is a regular contributor to the website of Social Affairs Unit, UK, a British foundation that publishes “intelligent comment and serious articles and reviews on culture high and low” contributed by a roster of distinguished British scholars.  Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe and other newspapers.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW ALLISON HAYWARD previously worked as Chief of Staff and Counsel in the office of Federal Election Commission Commissioner Bradley A. Smith. Prior to this, Professor Hayward practiced election law in California and in Washington DC.

In 1994-1995, Professor Hayward was a judicial clerk for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Circuit.

She is a member of the State Bar of California, the District of Columbia Bar, United States Supreme Court Bar, and the Eastern District of California Bar.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW NEOMI RAO was most recently Associate Counsel and Special Assistant to the President.  Professor Rao graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was comment editor for the Law Review.  After law school, she clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court.  Professor Rao also served as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where she was responsible for judicial nominations and constitutional law issues.  Prior to her work in the White House, Professor Rao practiced in the London office of Clifford Chance LLP, specializing in public international law and commercial arbitration.  She is a member of the Virginia State Bar and a Qualified Solicitor of England and Wales.

Professor Rao’s research interests include comparative constitutional law, international law, and jurisprudence.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW SAMSON VERMONT comes to George Mason from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was the Humphrey Fellow in Law and Economics. Before moving into academics, Professor Vermont practiced patent law in the DC office of Hunton & Williams, where he specialized in chemical, biotech and pharmaceutical patents.  

Professor Vermont also founded and served as Editor-In-Chief of Patent Strategy & Management, a monthly periodical published by American Lawyer Media. He is a member of the Georgia Bar, the DC Bar and the Patent Bar.

New Visiting Faculty

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR RANDALL B. CLARK holds degrees in political philosophy (Ph.D., 1998) and international politics (A.M., 1991) from the University of Chicago and in law (J.D., 2002) and African history (B.A., 1988) from the University of Virginia, where he was inducted as a Junior Fellow into the University of Virginia Society of Fellows.

His essays on philosophy, politics, and law can be found in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities and the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable and his reflections on medicine and political discourse in The Law Most Beautiful and Best (Rowman & Littlefield–Lexington Books 2003). Mr. Clark was also a Practicing Contributing Editor for Black’s Law Dictionary: Abridged Eighth Edition (West 2005).

Before turning to the study of the law, Mr. Clark was Research Associate in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. Following a year’s service in the chambers of the Hon. Edith H. Jones, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, he joined the firm of Goodwin Procter LLP, in Boston, Mass., where he litigated intellectual-property, products-liability, and land-use disputes.

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF LAW NITA GHEI comes to George Mason from Northwestern University School of Law, where she taught Comparative Law as a Searle Fellow.  Professor Ghei received her law degree from George Mason School of Law, where she was a Robert A. Levy Fellow.  She was also articles editor for the George Mason Law Review.

Professor Ghei was formerly a Judicial Clerk to the Honorable John C. Eldridge, Jr. for the Court of Appeals of Maryland.  Her current teaching interests are in Comparative Law, International Trade, International Law, Law and Economics, Conflicts of Law, and Civil Procedure.

New Director of Legal Research, Writing & Analysis

DIRECTOR OF LEGAL RESEARCH, WRITING AND ANALYSIS, ELIZABETH A. KEITH has taught Appellate Writing and Legal Drafting as an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University School of Law for two years, and served as Adjunct Coordinator for the Legal Research, Writing and Analysis program in 2005-06.  She is a 2001 cum laude graduate of George Mason University School of Law, where she served as editor-in-chief of the George Mason Law Review, and was active on Moot Court and the American Inns of Court. 

Prior to returning to George Mason in a teaching capacity, Elizabeth practiced law with Odin, Feldman & Pittleman, P.C. in Fairfax, Virginia.  Her practice concentrated on civil litigation, where she gained considerable experience in both trial and appellate practice at the state and federal level.