Nicolas Cornell joined Michigan Law as an assistant professor in July and is teaching Contracts and Contract Theory during the fall semester. Cornell came to the Law School from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics.
“I’m delighted to be joining the Michigan community, with its commitment to rigorous doctrinal and theoretical scholarship,” Cornell says. “I’m awed by my new colleagues, and I’m excited to be among them.”
Cornell writes about contract law, moral philosophy, remedies, and private law theory. His work seeks to connect issues in normative ethics with questions about the foundations of private law doctrine. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed philosophy journals, including the Philosophical Review and Philosophy & Public Affairs, and in top law reviews, including the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Michigan Law Review.
Cornell previously served as a law clerk to Justice John Dooley of the Vermont Supreme Court. He earned a JD from Harvard Law School, a PhD in philosophy from Harvard University, and an AB in philosophy from Harvard College.
Anne Peters, a William W. Cook Global Law Professor, joined Michigan Law in September. She is director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, and a professor at the universities of Heidelberg and Basel (Switzerland), as well as the Free University of Berlin. She was a member (substitute) of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) from 2011 to 2014, and was a legal expert for the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia in 2009.
She was also president of the European Society of International Law (2010–2012), and has served on the governance board of various learned societies such as the German Association of International Law, the German Association of Constitutional Law, and the Society of International Constitutional Law. She currently is vice president of the Basel Institute of Governance.
Her current research interests relate to public international law, including its history; global animal law; global governance; global constitutionalism; and the status of humans in international law. Peters has taught international law, human rights law, international humanitarian law, the law of international organizations, European Union law, comparative constitutional law and constitutional theory, and Swiss constitutional law.
Matthew Andres, ’02, joined the Law School in August as a clinical assistant professor and director of the Veterans Legal Clinic. Andres previously taught for four years at the University of Illinois College of Law, where he started the Elder Financial Justice Clinic, the first law school clinic in the country to focus on financial exploitation of the elderly. A one-man show, he was responsible for building the clinic from the ground up, which included developing the curriculum and client base, as well as fundraising.
“Teaching at Michigan has been my dream job,” Andres says. “I have always had a great deal of regard for this institution; the three years I spent at Michigan were some of the best times of my life. Michigan is a great place to be, and I’ve joined a fantastic group of clinicians who are highly regarded not just within these walls, but throughout the country.”
After graduating from the Law School, Andres worked as a litigation associate at Foley & Lardner in Milwaukee. He then served as an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee and later as an assistant prosecutor in Pontiac, Michigan, which led to teaching jobs at the University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Domestic Violence Clinic and Cooley Law School’s Family Law Assistance Project.
