Danielle C. Jefferis Assistant Professor of Law
Professor Jefferis’s research focuses on theories of punishment and the law and policy governing prison and detention, with an emphasis on the for-profit prison industry and immigration-related confinement. She takes both critical and comparative approaches to her work, looking at carceral systems, practices, and theories around the world. Professor Jefferis has presented her research at Harvard Law School, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Denver College of Law, Loyola University School of Law, Louisiana State University Law, the Australian National University, London University, Amsterdam Law School, the University of Lisbon, and Leiden University, among others. She has provided expert commentary on prison and detention issues for national and international media outlets, including VICE, Mother Jones, and NowThis, and has been solicited as an amicus curiae for cases involving prison law and prisoners’ rights in courts around the country.
Professor Jefferis’s scholarship is informed by her unique teaching and practice experience, which lie at the intersection of constitutional law and prisoners’ rights, immigration law, and federal courts. She has extensive civil rights litigation experience and has represented plaintiffs in federal courts across the country, including in the United States Supreme Court. She has taken several cases to trial and successfully litigated numerous appeals. In 2018, she was a member of a team of clinic faculty and student attorneys that successfully challenged the constitutionality of a federal prisoner’s convictions, resulting in his release from prison. One of her most memorable moments as an attorney and teacher was witnessing her client reunite with his family after being separated from them for more than a decade.
Prior to joining the Nebraska Law faculty, Professor Jefferis taught at California Western School of Law in San Diego and in the Civil Rights Clinic at the University of Denver College of Law. Before entering academia, she was the Nadine Strossen Fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project in New York and an associate attorney with a boutique civil rights firm in Colorado. Professor Jefferis also clerked for the now-retired Honorable Gale T. Miller of the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Richard E. Moberly Dean and Richard C. & Catherine S. Schmoker Professor of Law
Richard Moberly was appointed as the College of Law’s 17th Dean on April 1, 2017. Prior to this appointment, he served as the College’s Interim Dean in 2016 and as Associate Dean for Faculty from 2011 until 2016. He joined the law faculty in 2004 and has taught Evidence, Employment Law, a capstone course in Litigation, the Law of Secrecy, and in the Civil Clinic. In 2006 and 2011, he was voted the Professor of the Year by upperclass law students. In 2014, the College of Law Alumni Council selected Professor Moberly to receive the Distinguished Faculty Award, and in 2007, students and faculty awarded him the College Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2007-08, he received the Cline Williams Research Chair.
Professor Moberly's research interests include employee whistleblower protection and the law of secrecy. Professor Moberly has published numerous articles and book chapters on whistleblowing, including research on national security whistleblowers and codes of ethics, as well as an empirical study of Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation claims. He has spoken internationally on whistleblower protection and also co-edited The International Handbook on Whistleblower Research (Edward Elgar Publishing 2014). The United States Secretary of Labor has twice appointed Professor Moberly to the Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In May 2007, the United States House of Representatives invited Professor Moberly to testify on his research and as an expert on federal whistleblower protections in a hearing before the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections entitled Private Sector Whistleblowers: Are There Sufficient Legal Protections? Look here for a copy of Professor Moberly's Written Testimony and videos of his Testimony & Q & A from the hearing.
Professor Moberly has appeared numerous times in the national and international media to discuss whistleblowing and retaliation issues, including an invited op-ed with The New York Times, a Q&A with the Wall Street Journal, and stories for USA Today, The Economist, London Financial Times, Washington Post, CBS News, ABC News, Bloomberg Radio, France TV, and Voice of America (please click on the Noteworthy tab for a more complete list of, and links to, his media appearances). He regularly tweets (@Richard_Moberly) and blogs (lawofsecrecy.tumblr.com) about developments in the law of secrecy and whistleblowing law.
Before joining the law faculty, Professor Moberly practiced as an attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his B.A. degree in History, summa cum laude, from Emory University, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he worked as a law clerk for the Honorable N. Carlton Tilley, Jr., United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina.
