Elizabeth L. MacDowell

Professor MacDowell joined the faculty from Chapman University School of Law, where she developed a clinical course in the Chapman Family Violence Clinic and taught courses on family law and domestic violence law and policy. Her scholarship focuses on intersectional issues of gender, race, class and culture, domestic violence, and access to justice. She has published articles on the relationship between legal education, doctrine, and practice in marginalized communities, the construction of media representations of domestic violence, and how court systems and cultures impact access to justice in domestic violence cases.

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Professor MacDowell served as Recent Developments Editor of the Berkeley Women's Law Journal (now the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice), and as a member of the Moot Court Board and Workers’ Rights Clinic. Prior to entering the academy, Professor MacDowell was in private practice in Los Angeles, California, where she specialized in family law and domestic violence law and policy. She also has experience in complex business and employment litigation, and has litigated constitutional claims on behalf of prisoners. At UNLV, Professor MacDowell teaches Civil Procedure and co-directs the Family Justice Clinic, which focuses on prisoners and their families, and clients affected by the child welfare system and other forms of state intervention.

Professor MacDowell is a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Poverty Law, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, the Society of American Law Teachers, and the Feminist Theory and Race and the Law Critical Research Networks. She also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Child Custody. She is admitted to the state bars of California and Nevada, and to the California Northern and Central Federal District Courts.