As the Director of the Villanova Sentencing Workshop and former Chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, Steve Chanenson brings an innovative approach to the study of sentencing and criminal law. He teaches courses on sentencing, white-collar crime, criminal law and criminal procedure at Villanova. 

Professor Chanenson writes primarily in the areas of sentencing and criminal procedure with his works having been published in such journals as the Stanford Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Waseda Proceedings of Comparative Law, and Yale Law Journal Pocket Part. His scholarship and work on criminal sentencing, in particular, have gained him national recognition. Professor Chanenson has frequently spoken on sentencing before groups of judges, lawyers, and policy makers, including the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges, the annual Judicial Conference for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Federal Judicial Center. He has been quoted on the subject by numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune. 

Professor Chanenson was a Member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing for almost 14 years, having been appointed by three successive Governors of Pennsylvania. He was the elected Chair of the Commission from 2012 to 2015, the former Chair of the Commission’s Research Committee, and chaired the advisory committee for the Commission’s legislatively directed study of mandatory minimum sentences as well as its Strategic Planning Work Group. Appointed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Professor Chanenson also served on a committee that advised the Supreme Court on criminal justice reforms, including bail reform, for the First Judicial District (Philadelphia) criminal courts.

An elected member of the American Law Institute, Professor Chanenson is the Liaison from the National Association of Sentencing Commissions to the American Law Institute regarding efforts to revise the sentencing portions of the Model Penal Code. In addition, he is a Managing Editor of and frequent contributor to the Federal Sentencing Reporter (University of California Press/Vera Institute of Justice), the leading professional journal of brief commentary on sentencing law, theory, and reform.

Professor Chanenson was a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Law during the 2008-09 academic year, teaching American law at Xiamen University School of Law in Xiamen, Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China. During his time abroad, he spoke on sentencing issues in several other cities in mainland China as well as in Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, and Australia. 

Professor Chanenson has been recognized for his dedication to public service. On behalf of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, Justice Clarence Thomas presented him with the Judge Joseph Stevens Award for Outstanding Public Service in the Field of Law in a June 2005 ceremony at the United States Supreme Court. He was previously named a Truman Scholar in 1986 in recognition of his commitment to public service. For much of the past decade, Professor Chanenson has been active in the Truman Scholar selection process, serving on both the Finalist Selection Committee and regional Selection Panels.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A. in economics and M.S. in criminology), Professor Chanenson received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was a Comment Editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He began his career as a clerk to the Honorable Phyllis A. Kravitch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He later clerked for the Honorable William J. Brennan, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States. While at the Supreme Court, Professor Chanenson also served in the Chambers of the Honorable David H. Souter. As a litigation associate at Jenner & Block in Chicago, he helped defend, on a pro bono basis, a client charged with murder in state court. Professor Chanenson also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to the Criminal Division in Chicago before joining the Villanova Law faculty.

Professor Chanenson was previously on the Board of Directors of JEVS Human Services, a non-profit, nonsectarian social service agency with a multi-million dollar annual budget. JEVS provides a broad range of services – from health and rehabilitation to skills training and job placement – that help people from all walks of life across the Greater Philadelphia community achieve their personal and employment goals.

Professor Sparkes received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law. He earned his Master of Laws in International and Comparative Law from Notre Dame Law School, studying at its London Law Centre. He is a member of the New York bar.

Sparkes teaches State and Local Government Law and Administrative Law. He came to Chase after a long career in state and local government. He is a former managing attorney in the New York State Department of State, New York's local government agency, and a former administrative law judge. In addition, he has written on the subject of unincorporated business organizations.

Resa Kerns is the Associate Law Librarian for Emerging Technologies at the Univ. of Missouri-Columbia. She has taught first year Legal Research, and Advanced Legal Research. She works with other faculty members to integrate a variety of technology tools into their classrooms, and to supplement their classrooms. Resa received her B.A. degree from Kansas State University in 1984, her J.D. from the Univ. of Texas in 1987, and her Masters in Library Science in 1999. Prior to her career as a librarian, she practiced law in Austin, Texas.

Todd Venie is the Associate Director of the Legal Information Center & Professor of Legal Research at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Venie joined UF Law in 2013 as the Head of Research and Instruction, and has occupied his current position since July 2016. He teaches Legal Research, where students learn how to find relevant statutes and case law at the state and federal levels using both print and electronic formats. His previous positions include reference librarian at the Georgetown University Law Library and Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Ohio’s Fairfield County. Venie has published several articles, with topics including affordable online sources of legal research and case law. He earned his J.D. degree at Ohio State University and his M.L.I.S. at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Len Biernat is a Professor of Law at Mitchell | Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, teaching in the areas of Family Law, Education Law, Property Law, and Professional Responsibility. Prior to becoming a full time faculty member in 1985, he served as Assistant and Associate Dean for ten years. He earned degrees at Minnesota State University, B.S.; St. Thomas University, M.A.; Hamline University School of Law, J.D.; and New York University School of Law, L.L.M.. He served on several Minnesota Supreme Court Task forces in the areas of child support, visitation, and parent cooperation. He was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1997-2004 and was the chief author of major legislation in the area of Family Law. He has authored numerous articles, co-authored a book, "Legal Ethics for Management and Their Counsel" by Lexis publishing, and wrote a chapter on Federal Aid to Education in West's Federal Administrative Practice, by Thomson-West.

Elizabeth Adelman (J.D., M.L.S.) is Law Library Director and Vice Dean for Legal Information Services at the Charles B. Sears Law Library, SUNY Buffalo Law School. Beth is a member of the CALI Editorial Board.

Celia Taylor came to the University of Denver Sturm College of Law from Columbia University, where she taught a course in legal writing and research while obtaining an LLM in international human rights law. Prior to Columbia, Taylor was in private practice in San Francisco, specializing in corporate and securities law. Taylor currently teaches primarily in the corporate area, but has an abiding interest in human rights law. She is currently working to develop programs to build relationships with law schools in Central and South America.

Daisy Hurst Floyd is University Professor of Law and Ethical Formation at Mercer University School of Law. She received her B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Emory University and her J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law. After graduating from law school, she practiced law in Atlanta with the firm of Alston, Miller, and Gaines, and then served on the faculties of the University of Georgia School of Law and Texas Tech University School of Law before coming to Mercer Law School in 2004. She served as Dean of Mercer Law School from 2004 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2017.

Professor Floyd is the author of numerous law review articles and is a frequent speaker at academic and law conferences. Her teaching and research interests include Ethics, Legal Education, Civil Procedure, and Evidence. She has a particular interest in the ways in which higher education shapes students’ ethical development and in the possibilities for cross-disciplinary collaboration within higher education. Professor Floyd was named a Carnegie Scholar by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2001 in support of her research on the development of professional identity among American law students and participated in the Carnegie Foundation’s 2007 study of legal education, William M. Sullivan, et al., Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Practice of Law. She was an invited member of the Foundation’s Life of the Mind for Practice Seminar, focusing on the relationship between liberal education and professional education, whose findings are reported in William M. Sullivan & Matthew S. Rosin, A New Agenda for Higher Education: Shaping A Life of the Mind for Practice. Recent scholarship includes work on effective pedagogy for developing lawyers’ capacities for practical wisdom and on cross-disciplinary comparisons between legal education and clergy education regarding professional formation.

Professor Floyd is an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia, and the Texas Bar Foundation, and is admitted to the State Bars of Georgia and Texas. She has served on numerous professional committees, including currently serving as a member of the ABA Professionalism Committee and formerly as a member of the ABA President’s Council on Diversity in the Profession, the State Bar of Georgia Diversity Program Committee, and the Macon Bar Association Advisory Committee. She is a Master of the William Augustus Bootle Inn of Court in Macon, Georgia.

Anne G. Johnson is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law.  She received her B.A. and J.D. from Villanova University and is a member of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Bar. Since 2004, she has taught Advanced Legal Research, Introduction to Legal Research and Advanced Writing Group. As a former Assistant Council for Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Resources, she specializes in research related to administrative law, environmental law, policy, and legislative history.