Albany Law School Welcomes New Faculty
The Albany Law School community is excited to welcome a talented group of new faculty members for the upcoming academic year.
Three new faculty members will join the community: Assistant Professor of Law Diego H. Alcalá Laboy, Assistant Professor of Law Zhaoyi Li, and Associate Professor of Law Rose Rameau. Visiting Assistant Professor of Law Victoria Esposito joined the faculty on a permanent basis on July 1 as an Assistant Professor of Law. In addition, the law school also welcomes new visiting faculty David Elkins also began on July 1 as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law; Rebecca Durden, who joined the faculty in January 2024; and Mary Ann Krisa, who will join the faculty in January 2025.
Diego H. Alcalá Laboy, Assistant Professor of Law
Assistant Professor of Law Diego H. Alcalá Laboy joins the faculty of Albany Law School from Widener University Delaware Law School.
After completing his J.D. at the Inter-American University School of Law, he represented dozens of defendants in serious felonies at the largest public defender's office in Puerto Rico. He went on to earn his LL.M. in International Law and Human Rights Law from the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington DC. in 2008 and work as a Public Defender in both Virginia and Puerto Rico from 2009 to 2013.
Prior to joining Delaware Law School in 2023, he worked as an adjunct professor at the Inter-American University School of Law. He taught Federal Evidence and Federal Criminal Procedure courses at the University of Puerto Rico Law School's Federal Bar Review. His scholarship focuses on abolition, surveillance, law, and technology from various critical theory perspectives. In addition to his academic work, he also engages in service to the community as the owner of the firm Defensoria Legal LLC, where he represents federal defendants as a member of the Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorney and also advises startup companies. After incorporating technologies into his legal workflow, Professor Alcalá Laboy began to explore how these same tools could be used to improve access to justice for those who cannot afford legal representation.
Education
B.S. Babson College
J.D. Inter-American University School of Law
LL.M. Washington College of Law at American University
Zhaoyi Li, Assistant Professor of Law
Professor Li’s research focuses on corporate governance, fiduciary duties, law and technology. She perceives the law as a technology for organizing interactions among different groups of individuals. Her approach is primarily grounded in sociology, economics, and, above all, functionality.
Before joining Albany Law School, Professor Li was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and earned her J.S.D. degree from Washington University School of Law.
Li’s recent scholarly work, Layered Fiduciaries in the Information Age, published in the Indiana Law Journal, offers a novel resolution to the contention surrounding information fiduciary duties by proposing a theory of layered fiduciaries. Her article, Artificial Fiduciaries, which will be featured as the lead article in the Washington and Lee Law Review, critically examines the aptitude of artificial intelligence to fulfill the rigorous demands of fiduciary obligations. Her comparative piece, Judicial Review of Directors’ Duty of Care: A Comparison Between the U.S. & China, applies a case study approach to compare corporate governance schemes within two major economies.
Her scholarly contributions have been recognized on platforms such as the Oxford Business Law Blog and Business Law Prof Blog. Her works were selected to be presented at the University of Michigan Junior Scholars Conference among others.
Beyond academia, her zest for life is reflected in her passion for improv comedy, kayaking, and playing the Pipa (a stringed instrument like a violin).
She teaches Business Organizations, Securities Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Data Privacy Law.
Education:
J.S.D, Washington University in St. Louis
LL.M, Washington University in St. Louis
LL.B, Nanchang University
Rose Rameau, Associate Professor of Law
Prior to joining Albany Law, Professor Rameau was a visiting professor of international law, international business transactions and international arbitration at Georgia State University College of Law. Prior to academia, she founded and managed Rameau International Law in Washington DC and Paris, France, a boutique firm specializing in public international law and white-collar defense investigations. In October 2020, she obtained complete victory for the Federation of Nigeria in an oil and gas dispute for a three-billion-dollar claim involving expropriation allegations of the investments of an American company with Italian shareholders.
Professor Rameau is a leading practitioner with over 20 years of experience in international arbitration, investor-state treaty-based disputes, cross-border disputes, white-collar defense investigations (FCPA, UK Bribery Act), and French anti-corruption laws. She is trained in civil and common law traditions. She has advised and represented sovereign states and companies on international dispute resolution and international law. She has been appointed by investor and sovereign state as sole arbitrator, co-arbitrator, and president of tribunals in disputes concerning African states and foreign investors.
Professor Rameau is also a former assistant public defender for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Tampa, FL, and has clerked for judges and justices in the United States and abroad. Professor Rameau was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ghana School of Law from 2014 to 2016, where she utilized her international relations experience to represent and promote U.S. cultural exchange in Africa. Her Fulbright research entitled “Class Action Arbitration: The Effective Solution for Resolving Human Rights Violations Related to Oil and Gas Industry” allowed her to research Ghana’s state responsibility in the management of its natural resources vis-à-vis and the rights of indigenous people when signing concession agreements with investors. Professor Rameau has held academic positions at the Université Panthéon Assas (Paris II) and Université Paris Est Créteil (Paris12). In 2024, she received the AALS Mark Tushnet Prize in Comparative Law for her paper titled ‘Reshaping Government’s Fiduciary Role Under the 1992 Constitution of Ghana,” and received the American Bar Association’s Mayre Rasmussen Award for the Advancement of Women in International Law in 2020.
Professor Rameau is presently a member or has served as a member on a long list of boards and committees including:
ABA advisor to the Uniform Law Commission Study Committee on the Singapore Convention on Mediation;
Appointed ABA representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council where she Rameau joined the other ABA representatives to support the ABA Goal IV to advance the Rule of Law abroad and to defend the legal profession, liberty, human rights, and access to justice;
Appointed to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague for a term of six years in July 2020;
Barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana;
Board member of the Jamaica International Arbitration Center (JAIAC);
Court member of the International Court of Arbitration in Paris;
Fellow at the American Bar Foundation;
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in the UK;
Member of the ICC Task Force Addressing Issues of Corruption in International Arbitration;
Member of the International Arbitration Institute (IAI), in Paris, France;
Previous vice-chair of the Africa Committee and the International Energy and Natural Resources Committee of the ABA International Law Section;
Previously served as a board member of ArbitralWomen, a non-profit organization that promotes women in international arbitration, for two years. Now, she is a member of its Advisory Council;
Education:
J.D., Syracuse University College of Law, 2000
M.A., The Maxwell School of International Relations, 2000
LL.M., Université Panthéon Assas (Paris II), Paris, 2011
Diploma, University of Ghana School of Law, Post Graduate Study, 2017
Diploma, Swiss Arbitration Academy, 2014
Certificate, Universities Lucerne, Neuchâtel & Swiss Arbitration Academy, 2014
Certificat d'Aptitude à la Profession d'Avocat, Ecole de Formation Professionnelle des Barreaux de Paris, Paris, France, 2012
CAPA Art. 100 French Bar for Foreign Lawyers, Ecole de Formation Professionnelle des Barreaux de Paris, Paris, France, 2012
M.A., Middlebury College Language School, 1995
B.A., Binghamton University, 1994
Victoria Esposito, Assistant Professor of Law
Since August 2022, Victoria Esposito has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Albany Law School, where she teaches Introduction to Lawyering and Client Interviewing and Counseling. Before that, she was the first Advocacy Director of the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York (LASNNY), working with staff to identify and address systemic issues affecting low-income individuals. Some representative issues included improperly withheld SSP payments; housing issues such as persistent conditions issues and improper evictions; and improperly denied public assistance applications. She continues to represent some of the pensioners of the former St. Clare’s Hospital. Esposito first joined LASNNY in May 2011 as a staff attorney in the Canton office and became a senior attorney in January 2014. She has handled a variety of cases, including disability, eviction, family law, and foreclosure proceedings, and has filed numerous federal appeals in disability cases.
Before coming to LASNNY, Esposito was an Assistant District Attorney for St. Lawrence County, where she served as the appellate prosecutor in addition to prosecuting misdemeanors and felonies. She also taught aspiring law enforcement officers and helped train Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (S.A.N.E.s) at the David Sullivan Law Enforcement Academy.
From 2001-2006, Esposito taught subjects ranging from English to Constitutional Law at SUNY Canton, to national and international students. She also taught political science in partnership with the Xi’an International Studies University, located in Xi’an, China, and wrote SUNY-Canton’s Legal Studies program, the first four-year paralegal program within the SUNY system.
Since 2021, Esposito has co-authored the Social Security and Medicare Answer Book with Professor David Pratt. Her article A Systemic Reimagining of Poverty Law, which argues that poverty law scholarship can only be effective if it takes a systemic view of the ways in which various laws and legal structures interlock to create and perpetuate poverty, was published in the Fall 2023, Volume 31, issue of the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy .
Esposito is the recipient of LASNNY’s 2023 Ruth Miner Leadership Award, which recognizes a trailblazer in civil legal services who has also worked towards diversity and inclusion in the field. She continues to perform pro bono work for LASNNY. Esposito serves on the New York State Bar Association Committee on Legal Aid (COLA) and also sits on the board of the Capital Region Italian American Bar Association and on the newly formed Advisory Board of The Legal Project; she is a past board member of the Pride Center of the Capital Region. She is also of counsel to the Albany firm Conway Donovan & Manley PLLC.
Education:
B.A., University of Notre Dame
J.D., University of Notre Dame
The following visiting professors also will be teaching this academic year:
David Elkins, Visiting Professor of Law
David Elkins is Dean of the School of Real Estate and a Professor in the Law School at Netanya College in Israel. He has served as a visiting professor at the law schools of NYU, Cornell, Tulane, and SMU and as a visiting senior research fellow at Singapore Management University. His articles have been published in leading American and Israeli law journals, and he has spoken at conferences and colloquia in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Israel, China, and Singapore. Each year he hosts an International Roundtable in which tax experts from around the world meet to discuss cutting-edge issues in tax law and policy.
Rebecca Durden, Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Rebecca Ann Durden joins Albany Law School after more than thirty years with the New York State Office of the Attorney General. At the Attorney General’s office Durden first served as a line attorney in the Litigation Bureau. She then served as a Section Chief (Supervisory Attorney) managing a team of attorneys representing the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and the New York State Police, in 42 U.S.C § 1983 and employment matters. Durden’s final position at the Attorney General’s office was that of Special Trial Counsel for the Litigation Bureau where she was lead trial counsel on significant cases and supervised trials conducted by members of the Litigation Bureau. Prior to the Attorney General's Office, she spent five years in private practice at Shea and Gould, Frankfurt, Garbus, Klein and Selz, P.C. and Ohrenstein and Brown.
Education:
B.A., Colgate University
J.D., Cornell Law School
In Spring 2025, Professor Mary Ann Krisa ’19 will start as a visiting assistant professor of law in the Flex JD program. She will teach Intro to Lawyering.
Krisa is a Senior Appellate Court Attorney at the Appellate Division, Fourth Department. Prior to attending law school, she worked at Bard College, Cornell University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her hobbies include golfing, playing the piano and accordion, and creative writing. While awaiting the results of the bar examination, Krisa wrote her first book, “Bypass: 100 Incredibly Short Stories.”
Education:
Albany Law School, 2019; Cornell University, MPA; Smith College, 2001.
