Denver Law Welcomes 2018 New Faculty Members

The University of Denver Sturm College of Law is proud to welcome four new faculty members to the Denver Law community for the upcoming academic year. These highly accomplished teachers, scholars and practitioners significantly enhance the law school’s offerings in health law and environmental law as well as the legal writing and externship programs.

“These four outstanding colleagues will add further expertise to our #7-ranked legal writing program, our #8-ranked clinical program, our #19-ranked environmental law program, our nationally recognized externship program, and our emerging strength in the area of health law,” observed Dean Bruce Smith. “We look forward to celebrating the achievements of these outstanding colleagues in the years to come.”

Jennifer Cooper
Assistant Professor of the Practice

B.A., Louisiana State University
J.D., Seattle University School of Law

Jennifer Cooper brings her extensive experience in legal writing education to the Sturm College of Law from Tulane University where she has been an adjunct professor in the Online Masters of Jurisprudence in Labor and Employment Law Program. Previously, she was a visiting assistant professor of lawyering at the Seattle University School of Law where she taught legal writing. Cooper joins Denver Law’s Lawyering Process Program as an assistant professor of the practice. She is a member of the Legal Writing Institute, a founding member of the Association of Academic Support Educators as well as chief academic officer and co-founder of Lark Academic which provides academic resources and consulting for legal education. Cooper earned a JD from the Seattle University Law School where she was an editor for the Seattle University Law Review.

Kristen Uhl Hulse
Assistant Professor of the Practice

B.S.F.S., Georgetown University
J.D., American University Washington College of Law

Kristen Uhl Hulse joins Denver Law as an assistant professor of the practice working in the law school’s Legal Externship Program. She recently served as director of attorney recruitment and professional development at Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP, whereas she worked on a broad range of recruitment, retention, mentoring and training initiatives. Hulse began her legal career as an investment management attorney with Dechert LLP in Washington D.C. and London. She then transitioned to the law school setting to hold career and professional development advisory roles with Georgetown University Law Center, Columbia Law School and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall). Hulse received a BS from Georgetown University and a JD from the American University Washington College of Law, where she served as managing editor of the American University Law Review.

Govind Persad
Assistant Professor

B.A., Stanford University
B.S., Stanford University
J.D., Stanford Law School
Ph.D., Stanford University

Assistant Professor Govind Persad brings his expertise to the expanding field of health law. He received a PhD in Philosophy and JD from Stanford University, where he was a Stanford interdisciplinary graduate fellow and a student fellow at the Stanford Center for Law and Biosciences. He was most recently an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and in the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins. Persad’s research interests include the ethical and legal dimensions of health insurance, health care financing and markets in health care services, as well as the ethics and regulation of medical research. His work has been published in journals including The Lancet, American Journal of Law and Medicine, Ethics and numerous law reviews.

Wyatt Sassman
Assistant Professor

B.A., Vanderbilt University
J.D., Vanderbilt University Law School
LL.M., Georgetown University Law Center

Wyatt Sassman joins Denver Law’s Environmental Law Clinic as an assistant professor. He comes to the University of Denver from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as a clinical teaching fellow in the Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic. A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt Law School, Sassman clerked for The Honorable Gilbert S. Merritt on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He also was an associate attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charleston in South Carolina. While in Charleston, Sassman taught environmental law as an adjunct professor at the Charleston School of Law and published several articles and book chapters. In law school, he was executive editor of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, served on the board of the Legal Aid Society and helped establish the Medical Legal Partnership.