Josephine Sandler Nelson appointed Associate Professor of Law (Business Ethics) at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Villanova, Pa.—Mark C. Alexander, Arthur J. Kania Dean of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, has appointed Josephine Sandler Nelson as Associate Professor of Law (Business Ethics), effective July 1, 2017. A scholar, legal consultant and start-up advisor, Nelson teaches and writes on issues related to business law, ethics and white collar crime. She comes to Villanova from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she has served since 2015 as Senior Fellow at the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research. Nelson also is an advisor in the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
In this newly-created role, Nelson will teach courses in business ethics at the Law School. She will work collaboratively with two of the School’s Centers of Excellence—the John F. Scarpa Center for Law and Entrepreneurship and the David F. and Constance B. Girard-diCarlo Center for Ethics, Integrity, and Compliance—to advance legal scholarship and teaching that lie at the intersection of ethics and business.
“Josephine Nelson is a dynamic teacher-scholar whose expertise in law, business and ethics enhances the dimension of our already remarkable faculty,” said Dean Alexander. “She is an outstanding lawyer, educator and scholar with the diverse background and interests necessary to advance innovative thinking in the field of business ethics and their relationship to law. This hire not only adds an outstanding individual to our faculty, but it furthers our vision to educate business-savvy, ethical lawyers who are prepared for practice in an interconnected world. I am thrilled to welcome Josephine Nelson to the Villanova Law community.”
Nelson’s appointment is the latest in support of Villanova Law’s strategic plan and its Where Law Meets Business philosophy. As part of the plan, the Law School enhanced its curriculum to provide graduates with the academic, practical and professional skills necessary for success in 21st-century legal practice. Central to this outcomes-focused approach is an academic program that infuses business coursework, professional development skills and real-world learning opportunities into Villanova’s rigorous legal education.
Nelson has received numerous awards from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, including its 2016 Ralph Bunche Outstanding International Paper and its 2015 Outstanding Proceedings awards. Her scholarship has been published in both legal and business journals, including Harvard Law Review, Berkeley Business Law Journal, Journal of Management Inquiry, Cardozo Law Review, Journal of Legal Studies in Business (forthcoming) and The Georgetown Law Journal (forthcoming). Her book co-authored with Lynn Stout, Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know, will be published by the Oxford University Press in 2018.
In addition to her roles at Penn and Stanford, Nelson previously taught at the Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University and the Mihaylo School at Cal State Fullerton and was faculty mentor at the Haas Business School of the University of California at Berkeley.
Prior to her work in academia, Nelson served as staff counsel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and clerked for the Honorable David M. Ebel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the Honorable William H. Yohn Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She previously worked as a deputy district attorney and as a business litigator in Denver, Colorado. Nelson is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was the Supreme Court Co-Chair of the Harvard Law Review. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale University.
