Hannah Brenner
Lecturer in Law & Co-Director of the Kelley Institute of Ethics and the Legal Profession
Law College Building
648 N. Shaw Lane Rm 332
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
517-432-6804
hbrenner@law.msu.edu
Degrees
J.D. 1998, University of Iowa College of Law; B.A. 1994, University of Iowa
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Bar Admissions
Oklahoma
Courses
Domestic Violence, Gender, Power, Law & Leadership, Global Perspectives on Women in Law, Law and Gender, Torts I
Biography
Hannah Brenner joined the Law College in 2009. She is a Lecturer in Law and Co-Director, with Professor Renee Knake, of the Frank J. Kelley Institute of Ethics and the Legal Profession. She is also a core faculty member and serves on the advisory committee of the Center for Gender in the Global Context at Michigan State University. Her research and teaching interests primarily surround issues of gender, leadership and the legal profession, and violence against women.
Last year, Professor Brenner created and taught two new seminars that address issues of gender and the legal profession: Gender, Power, Law & Leadership and Global Perspectives on Women in Law. Both courses, though differing markedly in their focus, were inspired from her observations that absent from the current discourse on addressing gender (in)equality in the profession are both global perspectives and attention to legal education.
One of her major projects, in collaboration with Professor Knake, involves an empirical analysis of the media's depiction of Supreme Court nominees. Their work offers a modern lens for understanding why women remain significantly under-represented among positions of power within the legal profession. They are the first scholars to engage in such a project through the innovative merger of law, gender studies, mass media, and political science and their first article, Rethinking Gender Equality in the Legal Profession's Pipeline to Power: A Study on Media Coverage of Supreme Court Nominees (Phase I, The Introduction Week) is forthcoming in the Temple Law Review Their research serves as a site of inspiration for an upcoming symposium with the Michigan State Law Review. Gender and the Legal Profession's Pipeline to Power will take place April 12-13, 2012.
Professor Brenner's teaching and research also focuses on issues of domestic violence. She is particularly concerned with the importance of educating law students about the dynamics of domestic violence. She has co-authored several articles on mandatory arrest policies and domestic violence, and is working on a new piece that investigates legislative and policy innovations that move beyond the traditional criminal law response. Professor Brenner also is a part of the Violence Against Women Research & Outreach Initiative at MSU.
Prior to moving to Michigan, Professor Brenner served as the first executive director of the Center for Women in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. Under her leadership, the Center hosted the inaugural Women's Power Summit on Law & Leadership, an event that brought together leaders from all sectors of the legal profession with the goal of developing a blueprint for the continued advancement of women the legal profession. She remains active in these national efforts for reform. She previously taught at the University of Oklahoma, where she also directed a statewide women's political leadership program designed to address the historic under-representation of women in politics and public service.
Professor Brenner earned her BA from the University of Iowa in American Studies/Women's Studies, and her JD from the University of Iowa College of Law.