1. W&L Law Announces Faculty Appointments and Promotions

W&L Law Announces Faculty Appointments and Promotions Three faculty members were named to endowed professorships, and two other faculty members were promoted.

By Law Communications
April 21, 2025

Melanie Wilson, Dean and Roy J. Steinheimer, Jr., Professor of Law has announced the following appointments and promotions of five faculty members, effective July 1, 2025.

Three W&L Law faculty members have been named to endowed professorships. Beth Belmont will hold the Parker A. Denaco Professorship, Brandon Hasbrouck will hold the Sydney and Frances Lewis Professorship, and Kish Parella will hold the James P. Morefield Professorship. In addition, Alan Trammell has been promoted to full professor, and Alex Klein has been promoted to associate professor.

A member of the faculty since 2001, Beth Belmont will be the inaugural holder of the Parker A. Denaco '68L Term Professorship, a new professorship created to support an exceptional faculty member who is "judged to be excellent in teaching and in professional contributions" to the School of Law. Professor Belmont is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Community Legal Practice Clinic, and Director of Experiential Education.

In addition to supervising clinic students, Professor Belmont teaches Evidence, Family Law, in the advocacy portion of the 3L Immersion program, and as part of the Law, Justice, and Society undergraduate minor. She has been recognized for her teaching multiple times, including in 2023 with the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Fellowship for teaching excellence and in 2024 with the Monaghan Faculty Fellowship for experiential teaching excellence.

Professor Belmont is a tireless mentor and role model for students. For years, she has coached a W&L undergraduate mock trial team and the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) mock trial team. She also serves as a mentor for the BLSA more broadly, including hosting the group at her home at least once per month. Professor Belmont judges moot court competitions every year and is a constant faculty supporter at student events.

Professor Belmont's service to the law school has been extensive. She has chaired and served on a faculty appointments committee multiple times, including last academic year and this year as chair of the clinical appointments committee. She has served on the Self-Study Committee (2023-25), University Faculty Affairs Committee (2020-23), and the Experiential Education Committee (2023-24), among many others.

Brandon Hasbrouck, an accomplished scholar and teacher who writes in the areas of criminal law and procedure, constitutional law and theory, movement law, and abolition, will hold the Sydney and Frances Lewis Professorship. Professor Hasbrouck's research explores the legal and constitutional principles available to Congress and the courts to redress the ways law fails Black and other marginalized people, along with the structural possibilities for radical change in American society.

Professor Hasbrouck's work has been published in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the New York University Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, the UCLA Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, the Boston University Law Review, and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Additionally, Professor Hasbrouck has authored or coauthored amicus briefs in federal courts on some of the most important issues at the intersection of constitutional law and civil rights and habeas law. He is frequently consulted on litigation strategies involving civil rights and racial justice.

Professor Hasbrouck, who joined the W&L Law faculty in 2019, is a three-time recipient of the Ethan Allen Faculty Fellowship for scholarly excellence and a two-time recipient of the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Fellowship for teaching excellence. He is the first professor to have earned both awards in the same year. In addition, he was awarded the Lewis Prize for Excellence in Legal Scholarship in 2020 and 2021 and is the first Black professor to receive the W&L Student Bar Association's Professor of the Year award.

Before joining the university, Professor Hasbrouck worked at McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York. He also clerked for two federal judges, the Hon. Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the Hon. Roger L. Gregory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from Dominican College, and is admitted to the bar of New York State, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Hasbrouck received his J.D. degree in 2011 from Washington and Lee University School of Law, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Washington and Lee Law Review and was a member of the Black Law Students Association. He was also the recipient of the Frederic L. Kirgis, Jr., International Law Award for Excellence in International Law, graduated Order of Coif, and was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa. He earned his bachelor's degree from Dominican College.

Kish Parella, a recognized expert on business and human rights, will hold the James P. Morefield Professorship. Professor Parella serves on the boards of directors for the Corporate Accountability Lab and the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association. She is also an International Research Fellow for Oxford University's Centre for Corporate Reputation. Parella served as a co-chair of the 2022 American Society of International Law (ASIL) annual meeting, allowing her to organize a global, interdisciplinary conversation on emerging issues in international law. In 2024, Parella was elected to serve a three-year term on ASIL's Executive Council, and she was appointed to the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) as a Research Member.

Professor Parella's research explores different levers for encouraging corporate responsibility, such as board governance, responsible contracting, reputational risk, and supply chain compliance. Her scholarship has appeared in the Cornell Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, the peer-reviewed Journal of International Economic Law, and the American Business Law Journal, among others. Her research on corporate social responsibility has been widely recognized by both academic and practitioner communities. Three of her articles were selected for presentation at the prestigious Stanford/Harvard/Yale Junior Faculty Forum in consecutive years. Additionally, the peer-reviewed American Business Law Journal awarded Professor Parella its 2021 Ralph C. Hoeber Award for Excellence in Research for her article, "Protecting Third Parties in Contracts." Professor Parella served a three-year term as the Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and Law.

Professor Parella joined the W&L Law faculty in 2013. In addition to teaching seminars on corporate social responsibility, she teaches courses on torts, contracts, business associations, international business law and global compliance. Prior to joining the legal academy, Professor Parella practiced international arbitration and litigation at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. She received her LL.M. and J.D. from Duke Law School, and also holds an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge.

Alan Trammell has been promoted to full professor. Professor Trammell teaches and writes primarily in the fields of civil procedure, federal courts, and conflict of laws. He is recognized as one of the leading authorities on nationwide injunctions and has been invited to present his research at numerous conferences and on podcasts. His scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Texas Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. In 2023, he was invited to present his article "The False Promise of Jurisdiction Stripping" at the prestigious Yale/Stanford/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum. In 2024, he was recognized with the John W. Elrod Law Alumni Fellowship for teaching excellence.

Professor Trammell earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was a Hardy Cross Dillard Scholar and served as articles development editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, he clerked for the Hon. Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Hon. Theodor Meron of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (Netherlands). He then spent three years as a litigation associate at a firm in Washington, D.C. He received a bachelor's degree from Wake Forest University and master's degrees from the London School of Economics & Political Science and Oxford University, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar.

Alex Klein has been promoted to associate professor. Professor Klein teaches and writes in the fields of capital punishment, criminal law, and criminal procedure. Her research has focused on the Eighth Amendment, arbitrariness, and cruelty in punishment. Her scholarship has appeared in the Pepperdine Law Review, the Ohio State Law Journal, the Florida Law Review, the Nevada Law Journal, and others. She has also published in The Nation, the San Antonio Express-News, and the Houston Chronicle.

Before joining the Washington and Lee Law faculty in 2024, Professor Klein was an Assistant Professor of Law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, where she was named an Englehardt Research Fellow and received the Al Kauffman Faculty Excellence & Support Award. She was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law from 2019 to 2022. Before joining the legal academy, Professor Klein clerked for the Hon. Sally D. Adkins of the Supreme Court of Maryland and the Hon. Danny J. Boggs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Professor Klein received her J.D. summa cum laude W&L Law, where she served as Senior Articles Editor on the Washington and Lee Law Review and received the Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award for her Student Note. She received the John W. Davis Prize for the highest cumulative grade point average, the Barry W. Sullivan Constitutional Law Award, the Clinical Legal Education Association Award, graduated Order of the Coif, and was inducted into Phi Delta Phi and Omicron Delta Kappa. Professor Klein served in the United States Peace Corps in the Republic of Moldova from 2008 to 2010. She received her B.F.A. cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is admitted to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

If you know a W&L faculty member who has done great, accolade-worthy things, tell us about them! Nominate them for an accolade.