Faculty Emeriti
Wilfredo Caraballo
Emeritus Professor
J.D. New York University | B.A. St. Joseph College
[email protected] | 973-642-8951
Professor Caraballo received his B.A. from St. Joseph's College and J.D. from New
York University. He previously was with legal aid in New York City and has published
in the area of commercial law. Professor Caraballo came to Seton Hall in 1975. He
served as associate dean from 1988 through March 1990. He was on leave serving as
the Public Advocate of New Jersey from 1990 to 1992.
John Coverdale
Emeritus Professor
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin | J.D., University of Chicago | M.A., University of
Navarre | B.A., Lateran University
[email protected] | 973-642-8560
Professor John Coverdale specializes in federal and state tax law and in the interplay
of law and catholic social thought. He has published in the area of 19th and 20th
Century Spanish history as well as in taxation, administrative law, catholic social
thought, and just war theory. He was an attorney with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver
and Jacobson, Washington, D.C., before coming to Seton Hall in 1993.
Elizabeth Defeis
Distinguished Scholar and Dean Emeritus
LL.M., New York University | J.D., St. John's University School of Law
[email protected] | 973-642-8868
Professor Elizabeth F. Defeis has lectured internationally on human rights, rule of
law, democracy and constitution building, electoral reform and standards for independence
of the judiciary. Her expertise has been requested by governments and intergovernmental
institutions including the OSCE and the United Nations. Professor Defeis teaches and
has written extensively in the areas of International Law, International Human Rights,
International Criminal Law, European Union Law and United States Constitutional Law.
Professor Defeis joined the faculty of Seton Hall Law School in 1971 and was Dean from 1983 to 1988.
Mark Denbeaux
Emeritus Professor
J.D., New York University | B.A., College of Wooster
[email protected] | 973-642-8822
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Professor Mark Denbeaux is also the Director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for
Policy and Research, which is best known for its dissemination of the internationally
recognized series of reports on the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp. Professor Denbeaux's
interest in the conditions of detainment arose from his representation of two detainees
there. Following his visits to GTMO, and his participation in amicus briefs arising
from the rules governing the hearings for "enemy combatants," Professor Denbeaux realized
the need for an analysis of the government's assumptions and the principles governing
the detention process.
Linda Fisher
Professor of Law
LL.M., Northwestern University School of Law | J.D., University of Chicago Law School
| B.A., Macalester College
[email protected] | 973-642-8700
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Linda E. Fisher's professional and academic interests have always linked theory and
practice. In recent years, she concentrated in the areas of foreclosure, consumer
and mortgage fraud. In addition to her litigation in the Center for Social Justice,
she published the book Foreclosure Echo: How the Hardest Hit have been Left Out of
the Economic Recovery (Cambridge University Press 2019) (with Judith Fox), as well
as related publications including Consumer Fraud, Home Financing & the Erosion of
Trust, 118 Northwestern L. Rev.115 (2023) (symposium) Professor Fisher also engaged
in legislative and policy advocacy, including testifying before the House Financial
Services Committee and presenting at the Federal Trade Commission. From 1995 to 2006,
she was the Director of the Center for Social Justice. In 2014-15, Prof. Fisher was
a Network Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, researching financial
institution dysfunction in negotiating mortgage modifications. She was also named
a Bellow Scholar by the American Association of Law Schools for her research project
studying the relationship between vacant urban properties and banks’ abandonment of
foreclosures.
Prof. Fisher currently teaches a class on Law Student Mindfulness and Wellness and is a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Wellbeing in the Law.
Bernard Freamon
Emeritus Professor
LL.M. & J.S.D., Columbia University | J.D., Rutgers University School of Law (Newark)
| B.A., Wesleyan University
[email protected] | 973-642-8827
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Professor Freamon's primary teaching focus is in Islamic Jurisprudence and Islamic
Legal History. He also has strong interests in ethics, international law, comparative
law, evidence, legal philosophy, criminal law and jurisprudence, and Anglo-American
legal history. In recent years, Professor Freamon has increasingly turned his attention
to the problem of slavery in the Muslim world.
Professor Freamon was the founding director of Seton Hall Law School's Center for Social Justice He came to Seton Hall in 1979 and achieved emeritus status with the university in 2016.
Margaret Gilhooley
Emeritus Professor
J.D., Columbia University | B.A., Fordham University
[email protected]
Professor Gilhooley came to Seton Hall Law School in 1981 and has taught Food and
Drug Law, Administrative Law and Torts. She has published widely in the areas of Food
and Drug Law and Administrative Law, with an emphasis on commercial speech, drug safety,
preemption, deregulation and dietary supplements. While Professor Gilhooley retired
in June 2009, she continues to comment and write about FDA related issues.
Deborah Herrera
Emeritus Professor
J.D., Seton Hall University | M.L.S., Rutgers University | B.A., Seton Hall University
[email protected] | 973-642-8858
Prof. Herrera joined the Seton Hall Law Library in 1977 as a Reference/Faculty Librarian,
and was appointed Director of the Law Library in 1985. In 1998, she became Director
of the Legal Research and Writing Program and, until June, 2008, directed both departments.
In June, 2008, she transitioned from the Law Library to full time administration of
the LR&W Program.
Patrick Hobbs
Dean and Faculty Emeriti
LL.M., New York University School of Law | J.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill | B.S., Seton Hall University
Professor Hobbs is Dean Emeritus of Seton Hall University School of Law. He joined
the Seton Hall Law faculty in 1990 with a specialty in tax law; he became Associate
Dean for Finance in 1995 and was named Dean in 1999. In his 16 years as Dean, Professor
Hobbs shepherded the Law School through a series of groundbreaking initiatives that
raised Seton Hall Law to unprecedented prominence. During his tenure, Professor Hobbs
established several centers of excellence.
Robert Martin
Emeritus Professor
LL.M. New York University | J.D. Seton Hall School of Law | Ed.D. Columbia University
| M.A. Lehigh University | B.A. Dickinson College
[email protected] | 973-642-8853
Professor Robert Martin focuses on major policy areas involving the operation of state
and local governments. He has concentrated on issues impacting land use, education
law, state constitutional law and legislation. Several of his law review articles
have been excerpted and appear in leading law school textbooks. From 1985 to 2008,
Professor Martin served in the New Jersey State Legislature. Before joining the Law
School full-time in 1990, Professor Martin was a partner in a New Jersey law firm
specializing in land use and municipal practice and represented numerous municipalities
as municipal attorney, municipal prosecutor and zoning board attorney and as counsel
to three statewide trade organizations.
Catherine McCauliff
Emeritus Professor
J.D., University of Chicago | Ph.D., M.A., University of Toronto | A.B., Bryn Mawr
College
[email protected] | 973-642-8849
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Professor McCauliff is a legal historian and a renowned scholar. She teaches Comparative
Constitutional Law; Jurisprudence; European Legal History; English Legal History;
First Amendment; Religion and the First Amendment; Theory of Contracts; Agency, Partnerships
and LLCs; and Shakespeare and the Law. The theme of justice as fairness runs through
all of her courses as well as her life in the law. In recent years, Professor McCauliff
has focused her prolific scholarship upon the confluence of contract theory, religion,
literature, and American, English and European legal history as they relate to the
evolution of a jurisprudence of natural rights.
Ronald Riccio
Dean and Faculty Emeriti
J.D., Seton Hall Law | B.A., Seton Hall University
[email protected] | 973-642-8752
Ronald J. Riccio received his B.A. degree cum laude from Seton Hall University in
1968 and Juris Doctorate degree from Seton Hall University School of Law in 1971,
where he was a member of the school’s first public Law Review. Following a judicial
clerkship with The Honorable Lawrence A. Whipple, United States District Court Judge,
he began a sixteen year career in private practice as a litigator, during which time
he successfully represented plaintiffs and defendants in a number of major trial and
appellate matters. He returned to his alma mater in 1988 when he was appointed Dean
of Seton Hall University School of Law. He successfully served as Dean for eleven
years, during which time he also taught Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law.
Michael Risinger
John J. Gibbons Professor of Law Emeritus
J.D., Harvard Law School | B.A., Yale University |
[email protected] | 973-642-8834
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Professor Risinger holds a B.A. from Yale University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law
School. He is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on
Civil Procedure, a past chair of the AALS Section on Evidence, a life member of the
American Law Institute, and was for 25 years a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court
Committee on Evidence, which was responsible for the current version of the New Jersey
Rules of Evidence. He was a member of the Human Factors Subcommittee of the National
Commission on Forensic Science until that Commission’s sad demise in April of 2017,
and he is currently a member of the Human Factors Committee of the Organization of
Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) of the National Institute for Science and Technology
(NIST). He is the author of two chapters in Faigman, Kaye, Cheng and Mnookin, Murphy,
Sanders & Slobogin, Modern Scientific Evidence (“Handwriting Identification” and “A
Proposed Taxonomy of Expertise”). He is also the author of dozens of articles and
book chapters on a diverse range of subjects, including many articles on expert evidence
issues, and on issues concerning the plight of the convicted innocent. He is in addition
Associate Director of the Last Resort Exoneration Project at Seton Hall, which is
devoted to freeing the convicted innocent of New Jersey.
In January of 2017, he was awarded the John Henry Wigmore Award for Lifetime Achievement in Elucidating the Law of Evidence and the Process of Proof by the Evidence Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Since his retirement on Feb. 1, 2018, Professor Risinger has remained an active scholar and advocate for the convicted innocent.
Brenda Saunders
Emeritus Professor
B.M.E.and M.M.E., Howard University | J.D., Seton Hall University
[email protected] | 973-642-8838
Professor Saunders specializes in Entertainment Law and is Faculty Director of the
Entertainment Law Externship Program, supervisor of students who are selected to participate
in opportunities at various record companies and at MTV, located in New York City.
Charles Sullivan
Emeritus Professor
LL.M., New York University | LL.B., Harvard University | B.A., Siena College
[email protected] | 973-642-8870
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Professor Sullivan received his B.A. from Siena College, his LL.B. from Harvard University
and his LL.M. from New York University. Dean Sullivan has published in the areas of
employment discrimination, employment law, contracts, and antitrust. An elected member
of the American Law Institute, he joined the Seton Hall Law faculty in 1978. He was
honored with the Catania Chair from 2010 to 2016, named in memory of a deceased colleague,
friend, and co-author. He served as Associate Dean at Seton Hall from 1995 until 2001
and directed the Rodino Library from 2008 to 2015. He served as Associate Dean for
Finance and Faculty from 2015 to 2019.
John Wefing
Distinguished Emeritus Professor of New Jersey Law &History
LL.M., New York University |LL.M., New York University | J.D., Catholic University
| A.B., St. Peters College
[email protected] | 973-642-8836
John B. Wefing has been a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of law
for the past 47 years. Professor Wefing specializes in federal and state constitutional
law with particular emphasis on criminal issues. He has taught numerous courses including
courses dealing with the New Jersey Constitution and the New Jersey Court System.
During his tenure at Seton Hall he has served as associate dean and acting dean. He
has received many awards including the Young Lawyer of the Year from the New Jersey
State Bar Association, the McQuade Medal presented for outstanding contributions to
Seton Hall University and the Thomas More Medal for his devotion to the law and the
Catholic Church.