About the Authors

Michael Hunter Schwartz

Michael Hunter Schwartz is a Professor of Law, and the immediate Past Dean of University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He teaches contracts and remedies, each of which he has taught for more than 20 years, and he has also taught contract drafting and a seminar on the U.S. Supreme Court.

After serving eight years as the 10th Dean of the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law from 2017-2025, Professor Schwartz resumed his full-time faculty role as Professor of Law.

Professor Schwartz is the author of books (three of which come with lengthy teacher’s manuals), law review papers, book chapters, and several shorter works addressing a wide variety of teaching, learning and curriculum design topics. Schwartz's books include What the Best Law Teachers Do (Harvard University Press 2013) and a contracts textbook, Contracts: A Context and Practice Casebook (3d ed. 2020), which was the first book in a textbook series he designed to modernize law school casebooks (which he now edits and which includes more than 25 other books).

Professor Schwartz is a national leader in law school teaching and learning. He has delivered more than 230 professional presentations about teaching and learning in law school at conferences and as invites speaker to law schools throughout the country and the world. Professor Schwartz is a Consultant to the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, and he is a member of the board of advisors for a national legal publisher and a peer-reviewed law review.

Professor Schwartz's leadership is evident in his role as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section for Part-Time and Other Alternative-Scheduled JD Programs. His previous work as Chair of the AALS Sections on Deans, Socio-Economics, Teaching Methods, and Balance in Legal Education reflects his commitment to shaping the future of legal academia. Professor Schwartz also served on the inaugural, 10-member Dean’s Advisory Board for the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Legal Education Police Practices Consortium.

In January 2024, National Jurist Magazine named Schwartz the 9th Most Influential Person in Legal Education. He was also ranked on the list in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Professor Schwartz’s Contracts course was selected by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System as “an innovative course that reflects exemplary innovative teaching.” In 2019, Schwartz was one of 30 CLEO Edge Award Honorees in the Education category, underscoring his transformative contributions to the field.

Before his deanship at McGeorge School of Law, Schwartz was dean at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law in Little Rock, Arkansas from 2013-2017. He taught at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas from 2006-2013, where he also served as the law school’s Associate Dean for Faculty Development and the Co-Director of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning.

Professor Schwartz is the lead author of two additional forthcoming books to be published in the next few years by Harvard University Press, What the Best Law Mentors Do and What the Best Young Lawyers Do.

Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit holds a Curator’s Professorship and the Edward D. Ellison Professorship at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law School. She served as the Associate Dean for Faculty at the Law School for eight years, and previously as Chair of the AALS Section on Women in Legal Education and as President of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools.

Professor Levit has been voted by the students as the Law School’s Outstanding Professor of the Year six times and she has received the Elmer Pierson Faculty Teaching Award three times, the UMKC N.T. Veatch Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity, the Missouri Governor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and the University of Missouri System’s Thomas Jefferson Award.

She is one of 26 law professors in the country profiled in Michael Hunter Schwartz’s book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. She teaches Employment Discrimination, Gender & Justice, Jurisprudence, and Torts, and is the faculty co-advisor to the UMKC Law Review. Professor Levit is the author of eleven books, including The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law and The Good Lawyer: Seeking Quality in the Practice of Law. With Professors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, she is an author of Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy.

Theresa Beiner

Theresa M. Beiner is the Professor in Constitutional Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law. She was the first permanent female Dean at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law.

During her five years as Dean, she helped fund and start the law school’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic and Pro Bono Services Center as well as successfully sought approval and funding of the Center for Racial Justice and Criminal Justice Reform at the school. Professor Beiner has served as the law school’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Dean for Faculty Development.

A graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A.) and the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Professor Beiner teaches and researches in the areas of Employment Discrimination, diversity in the judiciary, Constitutional Law, and Civil Procedure. Bowen has awarded Professor Beiner its faculty excellence awards for scholarship and teaching. In 2025, she was awarded the University’s faculty excellence award for research or creative endeavors.

Mary-Beth Moylan

Mary-Beth Moylan is a Professor of Law at University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. She has taught Civil Procedure, Professional Responsibility, Election Law, and a seminar on the California Initiative Process over the last twenty-five years. She was also the founding director of the Global Lawyering Skills program, and she teaches skills courses in that program. She served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2019-2024.

Professor Moylan’s recent publications are focused on ethics, direct democracy, and the rule of law. She is also the co-author of Global Lawyering Skills (West 2013) and Global Lawyering Skills: Second Edition (West 2018), a legal skills textbook that is unique in the market for its focus on cross-border and cross-cultural considerations in lawyering skills and practice.

Professor Moylan has a long-standing passion for and expertise in politics and government. Since 2003, she has supervised the publication of the California Initiative Review, an online journal providing objective and neutral analysis of each statewide ballot proposition. The California Initiative Review is published in advance of every California statewide general election. Professor Moylan and her students also hold a public forum for explanation and discussion of the statewide ballot propositions, and Professor Moylan regularly provides a summary of the propositions to Capital Public Radio’s Insight program in advance of each general election. Her expertise in politics and government is not limited to the initiative process, and Professor Moylan is often looked to by local news media for expert advice on state constitutional issues, conflicts of interest, and other election related topics. She was chairperson of the inaugural Sacramento Ethics Commission in 2018.

Professor Moylan is also an expert in legal skills education. She was President of the highly respected and influential Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) in 2014-2015, and she regularly presents at conferences. In May 2018, she was a panelist for ALWD’s first Leadership Academy, and she presented at the ALWD conference in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2016, she presented on a mediation panel at the Global Legal Skills Conference in Verona, Italy, and the Legal Writing Institute Conference in Portland, Oregon. During her tenure as GLS director, McGeorge has hosted the ALWD Conference (2011) and the Western Regional Legal Writing Conference (2016). She continues to serve on ALWD’s ABA Task Force, and as an advisor to its ALWD Guide Committee.

She maintains her connections to the Sacramento legal community and keeps abreast on changes to legal practice through her involvement with the Anthony M. Kennedy American Inn of Court. The Kennedy Inn brings together judges, lawyers, and law students to promote ethics, civility, and professionalism in the practice of law. Professor Moylan was a member of the executive committee of the Kennedy Inn until 2024.

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