Amy A. Emerson

Assistant Dean for Library and Information Services
& Associate Professor of Law

Biography

Amy A. Emerson is Assistant Dean for Library and Information Services and Associate Professor of Law at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law.  Professor Emerson manages law library operations and strategic planning, oversees the legal research curriculum, and teaches courses in law and technology, including Law Practice Technology and Leveraging Technology to Promote Access to Justice, a course in which students use open-source software to build legal tech solutions for community partners.  Her personal scholarship interests draw upon her decade of experience as an attorney and focus on open access to legal information as it informs access to justice.   A list of Professor Emerson’s publications is set forth in the link to her CV.

Prior to joining Villanova, Professor Emerson taught at Cornell Law School where she created the Legal Research Clinic and became its Director, building the first generalist legal clinic of its kind dedicated to serving clients who do not yet require full representation for a case, but nonetheless have a legal question that requires council.  

Professor Emerson serves on the Executive Board of the Technology, Law, and Legal Education Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), as a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), as a Site Visit Team Member for the American Bar Association (ABA) Section on Legal Education, as immediate past Chair of the Government Relations Committee of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), as past president of the Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New York, and as a founding officer of the International Legal Research Interest Group of the American Society of International Law.

Professor Emerson received her B.A. with honors from Wells College, and dual J.D. and M.L.S. degrees with honors from Syracuse University.