Sylvia Lazos
Justice Myron Leavitt Professor of Law
Email: lazoss@unlv.nevada.edu

Making the US legal and political system one that affords equality for everyone, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation, is what drives Professor Sylvia R. Lazos to excel as a law professor. A constitutional law and critical race scholar, Professor Lazos has written exhaustively on how constitutional norms can accommodate a new American reality that is increasingly multicultural, multiracial and multiethnic. These articles have appeared in respected journals such as the Ohio State Law Journal, Maryland Law Review and Tulane Law Review.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, where her father served as a missionary, Professor Lazos attended St. Mary’s University, in San Antonio, Texas, graduating magna cum laude with B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics. She worked for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington D.C. as an economist before attending law school. At the University of Michigan Law School she served as Assistant and Contributing editor of the Michigan Law Review and received various other honors. From 1986 to 1992, she practiced commercial and real estate at the law firm of McConnell Valdes in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as an associate and then partner.

Professor Lazos began her teaching career at Florida State University College of Law in 1992. At Florida State, she studied voter initiatives and legislative attempts to reform constitutional property rights, and served on the states’ advisory committee on property rights. She also developed a comparative law course on Caribbean Legal Systems with faculty from the University of the West Indies.

From 1999 to 2002, Professor Lazos served on the law faculty of the University of Missouri-Columbia where she taught Constitutional Law, Business Organizations, Legislation, and a seminar on diversity and the law. As well, her research and service focused on Latina/o immigration. Seeking to facilitate a better understanding of the contributions of Latina/o immigrants, Professor Lazos and faculty from social sciences and University extension organized the Cambio de Colores conference series. This effort, now in its fourth year, has been influential in helping community and state leaders understand how to best facilitate economic, social and political incorporation of Latina/os. Her monograph on Latina/o immigration. Cambio de Colores (Change of Colors): Legal and Policy Challenges, available on the Web, has thousands of copies in print. For her work on immigration in Missouri, she received citations from the University as well as the state. She is also a member of Latina/o critical law professors (LatCrit), and has written on the Spanish American War and Puerto Rico. A forthcoming work to be published in the Oregon Law Review on Latina/o and Asian Pacific voters has already been influential among minority voting rights scholars.

Professor Lazos’s international background has meant that her interests extend overseas. As Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution at the University of Missouri-Columbia, she collaborated with faculty from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa in conducting constitutional law and teaching seminars. She is currently working with faculty from the University of Galway, Ireland in joint interdisciplinary research focusing on how the design of formal and informal legal dispute resolution systems might ameliorate long standing inter ethnic, religious and racial group identity conflicts. Professor Lazos will be joining the Boyd School of Law’s Saltman Center on Conflict Resolution in order to continue this work.

Professor Lazos is a frequent op-ed contributor, and her expertise is sought by print and broadcast media on a wide range of subjects, including immigration, race relations, government, voting and initiatives.

At the William S. Boyd School of Law, Professor Lazos will teach Constitutional Law, Legislation, Business Organizations and a seminar on race, gender, and sexuality. She genuinely likes her students and hopes that she can contribute to their development as lawyers who can assist all of their clients, no matter their background or their legal problem.

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