Cassandra Burke Robertson was named director of the endowed Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Robertson has taught professional responsibility at the university’s law school for more than eight years. Her scholarship focuses on ethics and procedure in a globalizing profession, and she has published in several prestigious journals, including the Columbia Law Review, Boston University Law Review and North Carolina Law Review.
She was the recipient of the 2006 Bert W. Levit award for innovative research and writing on lawyers’ professional liability, sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Lawyers’ Professional Liability and Long & Levit LLP. She co-authored a professional responsibility casebook forthcoming from West Publishing. In addition to professional responsibility, she teaches civil procedure, secured transactions and international civil litigation. Robertson received a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she also obtained joint master’s degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Public Affairs.
The Center for Professional Ethics, founded in 1978 by Robert P. Lawry, a long-time professor at the law school who retired in 2007, and Robert W. Clarke, retired director of Case Western Reserve’s Christian Movement, brings together practicing professionals, faculty members and students to examine such topics as confidentiality, decision-making, lying and conflict of interest across the professions.
“I am honored to step into this new role and grateful to Bob Lawry, whose mentorship and work in building the Center has been both instrumental and inspirational,” Robertson said.
The center, supported by the David and Katherine Ragone Endowment Fund, will continue to draw on founding principles to expand its inter-disciplinary approach and bridge the gap between theory and practice in the field of professional ethics. A symposium is planned for 2015.