Colorado Law Professor Suzette Malveaux has been named Moses Lasky Professor of Law, one of the school’s highest faculty distinctions. With this honor, Professor Malveaux joins a previously named Moses Lasky Professor, Sarah Krakoff, who is on leave while serving the Biden administration as Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife.
Professor Malveaux currently serves as Provost Professor of Civil Rights Law and as the Director of The Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law.
“Colorado Law couldn’t be prouder to count Professor Malveaux among our extraordinary faculty,” remarks Dean of the Law School Lolita Buckner Inniss. “As a leader, both in our community and beyond, she embodies values our school holds dear—namely the vigorous pursuit of justice, excellence, and exceptional civic engagement.”
Professor Malveaux teaches Civil Procedure, Employment Discrimination, and Constitutional Civil Rights Law. She researches and publishes on the intersection of civil procedure and civil rights and co-authored Class Actions and Other Multi-Party Litigation; Cases and Materials (West, 2006, 2012). She is also a member of the American Law Institute and Chair of the AALS Civil Procedure Section.
Professor Malveaux graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and earned her J.D. from NYU School of Law as a Root-Tilden Scholar. Upon graduation, she clerked for the federal district court (SDNY) for the Honorable Robert L. Carter.
As a practitioner, she has tackled complex legal matters in high profile civil rights cases at the federal trial and appellate court levels. In 2011, she represented over 1.5 million women in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the largest employment discrimination class action in U.S. history to date. For six years, Professor Malveaux served as pro bono counsel to the plaintiffs in Alexander v. State of Oklahoma, a suit filed against Tulsa by victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. As part of a team of attorneys, she represented the riot victims before the U.S. federal courts, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Organization of American States), and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Moses Lasky ‘28, for whom the professorship is named, remains one of the law school’s most exceptional graduates. A titan of trial and appellate law, Lasky appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court nearly 50 times and was nationally renowned for his intellect and legal acumen.