November 2025
Volume 3, Issue 4

When Our Faculty Speak, the Nation Listens 

While all our faculty contribute significantly to the nation and the world through their scholarship, teaching, and service, I wanted to highlight three this month whose recent accomplishments especially underscore the way their legal scholarship is making a difference.

This award recognizes more than five decades of pioneering work in animal law. His service began in 1982 when he co-founded the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Since, David was instrumental in establishing MSU College of Law as a national leader in this field and in creating the Animal Legal & Historical Center, an indispensable global resource for lawyers and advocates. The award honors his extraordinary scholarship, decades of conference speaking, and long-standing leadership on the boards of animal-law organizations. 

His article, “The Solution to the Third-Term Threat,” was published in The Atlantic on Nov. 3, offering a thoughtful, principled analysis of presidential term limits amid renewed debate over executive power.

In recent weeks, since the beginning of this presidential term, really, he’s been interviewed by endless media outlets, including The Economist, Law & Crime, PolitiFact, and The Guardian, offering his expertise on constitutional checks and balances. He also spoke on the Profs on Cops podcast and at the Wyoming Law Review Symposium about his well-known research on the “Yellowstone Zone of Death.”

Professor Wenona Singel continues to lead nationally in the field of Indian law. She co-authored the eighth edition of Cases and Materials on Federal Indian Law (West Academic, 2025) and a comparative piece on Indigenous rights and reconciliation published in the Canada-U.S. Law Journal. In late October, she hosted the Michigan Tribal State Federal Judicial Forum at the College of Law, convening judges from across jurisdictions to discuss career paths, child welfare, access to justice, and cross-jurisdictional collaboration — giving our students a front-row seat to those vital conversations.

Attendees at the 2025 Michigan Tribal State Federal Judicial Forum hosted by Wenona Singel in October

These are just a few of the many ways our faculty are advancing knowledge, shaping the law, and mentoring the next generation of Spartan lawyers. Sharing the impact of our faculty with Provost McIntyre reminded me how deeply proud I am to serve alongside them — and how bright the future of MSU Law truly is. 

Michael Sant'Ambrogio
Dean and Red Cedar Distinguished Professor
Michigan State University College of Law

Full Time Faculty

He presented to the Greater Lansing United Nations Association’s CLIMATE CHANGE:​ International Obligations and Human Failures​ on Oct. 9, 2025. 

He taught an animal law class via Zoom to students at Willamette Law in Oregon; and spoke to the a Student Animal Defense Fund group at MSU Law on Nov. 5, 2025. 

He was interviewed by NPR, a Nebraskan news outlet and by the Mexican news outlet in Letras Libres (letraslibres.com).  

• The Economist article, Could Donald Trump Become President Again in 2028? (Oct. 30, 2025). 
• Law & Crime for the article, ‘Simply ignoring the Constitution': Trump rejected 'most straightforward' route to third term — and the alternatives are 'ghastly,' legal scholar says (Oct. 28, 2025). 
• PolitiFact for the article, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon keep talking about a 3rd term. Can Trump do it? (Oct. 27, 2025). 
• The Guardian for the article, Scrutiny grows over Trump competence – but can an unfit president be removed? (Oct. 21, 2025) 
• Profs on Cops podcast for the episode, Yellowstone's Zone of Death (Oct. 7, 2025). 
• C.J. Box Symposium, Wyoming Law Review about Yellowstone Zone of Death (Oct. 18, 2025). 

She also presented her paper, Betraying Corporate Clients, at the Big 10 Early Career Scholars Workshop at the University of Nebraska School of Law and as a featured guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam’s Center on the Legal Professions and Access to Justice.  

Her article, Ethics & Independence in Trump's War on Big Law, (with Chris Hampson) was the subject of California Law Review's podcast, Source Collect. 

On Oct. 23, 2025, he presented his paper “Naming Authority” at a University of Oregon School of Law faculty workshop.  

On Oct. 9, 2025, he interviewed Robert Bilott as part of the Gupta Ethics Lecture Series: Event Registration for Gupta Ethics Lecture Series. 

She also co-authored Indigenous Reconciliation and Development, 49 Can.-U.S. L.J. 80 (2025), a comparative discussion of Indigenous rights, reparations, and economic development in the U.S. and Canada with journalist Diane Francis and Wayne Garnons-Williams, the CEO of the National Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation.  

On Oct. 27–28, 2025, she hosted the Michigan Tribal State Federal Judicial Forum at the College of Law on behalf of the Indigenous Law & Policy Center. The Forum meeting featured panel discussions by judges on career paths, the legal-desert crisis in rural Michigan, cross-jurisdictional court collaboration, and child welfare issues under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and Michigan Indian Family Preservation Act (MIFPA). 

Adjunct Faculty

He also published TQL Scores Win in Pink Cheetah Transparency Suit; Pink Cheetah Appeals in Freightwaves (Oct. 24, 2025) 

He also published Broker liability in the spotlight in ‘Montgomery v Caribe Transport’ in Journal of Commerce (Oct. 8, 2025). 

He spoke at the FreightWaves F3 industry event on broker transparency. 

She also provided pre-recorded remarks on children and care reform in Africa for the International Bar Association Annual Conference held in Toronto, Canada, Nov. 3 - 5. 

She led a technical workshop with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in Colombia, Nov. 5 to 7, to strengthen accountability for attacks on education. The work was covered by Noticias Caracol.