Boyd Law welcomes Professors Cross, Crowder, and Ruan

Professor Courtney K. Cross

Professor Courtney Cross will join the faculty at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV in Fall 2023 as a Professor of Law. Professor Cross will design and teach a new law clinic focused on providing legal services to survivors of intimate partner violence, with an emphasis on advocating for criminalized survivors.

Professor Cross’ research focuses on the intersectionality of domestic violence, criminal law, poverty, and public health. Her scholarship has appeared in leading law reviews, including the University of California – Davis Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, the Washington Law Review, and the Utah Law Review. Prior to Boyd Law, Professor Cross was an Associate Professor of Clinical Legal Instruction and the Director of the Domestic Violence Law Clinic at the University of Alabama School of Law. She has taught in the Civil Litigation Clinic at the University of Denver and was a clinical teaching fellow in the Domestic Violence Clinic at Georgetown University.

Prior to joining academia, Professor Cross served as an Equal Justice Works/AmeriCorps Fellow and staff attorney at a women’s reentry nonprofit in Washington, D.C. where she represented formerly incarcerated women in domestic violence and family court proceedings. She also represented incarcerated women in parole revocation hearings. Professor Cross received an LL.M. degree with honors from Georgetown University Law Center, a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and her B.A., magna cum laude, from UC San Diego.

Professor Patience Crowder

Professor Patience Crowder will join the faculty at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV in Spring 2024 as a Professor of Law. She will design and teach a new law clinic that will focus on transactional legal assistance and community economic development. Prior to Boyd Law, Professor Crowder was an Associate Professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and the Wellspring Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Tulsa College of Law.

Professor Crowder’s scholarship examines the intersection and impact of contract, corporate, and local laws in advocacy for the public interest, particularly in revitalizing underserved communities. Her articles have been published by the Tennessee Law Review, the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, the Marquette Law Review, and the Indiana Law Review. Professor Crowder served as a Clinical Fellow in the Community Development Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law and prior to this, worked as the business development manager of a nonprofit that revitalized an inner-city neighborhood through economic development and public education in Sacramento, CA. She began her legal career as a bank finance associate with Shearman & Sterling in San Francisco, California. She earned her J.D. from Rutgers School of Law in Newark, and a B.A. in Sociology from Georgetown University.

Professor Nantiya Ruan

Professor Nantiya Ruan will join Boyd Law as a Professor of Law in the Fall of 2023. Professor Ruan will bring her considerable strengths in teaching legal writing to Boyd’s top-ranked Lawyering Process program; she will also teach courses related to her other areas of expertise in workplace law and homeless advocacy.

Professor Ruan’s research and scholarship explores low-wage work, collective action, poverty and homelessness, and social justice teaching. Her scholarship has appeared or will appear in, among other publications, the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, the Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review, the Brooklyn Law Review, the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law, the Clinical Law Review, the Villanova Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Marquette Law Review.

Professor Ruan graduated from Denver University with dual J.D. & M.S.W. degrees and clerked in the U.S. District Court in S.D.N.Y. She has represented plaintiffs in discrimination, pay equity, and wage and hour class actions. She is a dedicated advocate for workers and indigent clients. The legal writing community recently awarded her the Terri LeClercq Courage Award (LWI) and the Inaugural Diversity Award (ALWD).