Rate My Professor Zelda Harris

Zelda B. Harris serves as Dean and Professor of Law at Western New England University School of Law, a position she has held since August 1, 2023. A Massachusetts native, she earned a B.S. from Syracuse University and a J.D. from Washington University School of Law. Harris began her legal career as an attorney at the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation in Alton, Illinois, providing services to clients facing barriers to representation due to income, race, gender, and other factors. She later served as a staff attorney in the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law. At the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, she was a Clinical Professor of Law, directing the multi-disciplinary Domestic Violence Law Clinic and co-directing the Child and Family Law Clinic. For over a decade at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, she directed the Dan K. Webb Center for Advocacy as the Mary Ann G. McMorrow Professor of Law, overseeing curriculum development for J.D. certificate and L.L.M. programs in advocacy, elevating the trial advocacy program to national ranking. In 2021, she acted as interim dean, revising the mission statement to prioritize dismantling racism and oppression, achieving the highest percentage of diverse students in an entering class and hiring faculty aligned with that focus.

Harris specializes in trial advocacy, serving as a faculty member for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy since the early 2000s, training lawyers in direct examinations, cross-examinations, opening statements, and closing arguments. She has extensive experience representing victims of gender-based violence over 25 years and leads international voluntarism efforts, including training 60 inmates in trial advocacy in Naivasha, Kenya, with NITA, Jones Day, and Justice Defenders, as well as programs in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries in collaboration with the State Department and Lawyers Without Borders. Her scholarship includes 'The Predicament of the Immigrant Victim/Defendant: "VAWA Diversion" and Other Considerations in Support of Battered Women' (2004, St. Louis University Public Law Review) and a foreword to the Western New England Law Review (2024). In 2024, she received the African American Female Professors Award Association Inspirations Award for contributions to legal education, diversity, inclusion, and social justice. Harris champions experiential learning, social justice, anti-racism, and preparing students from marginalized communities to address inequities through advocacy.