ergo, Summer 2025

Announcing the Susan H. Williams Feminism and Constitutions Lecture Series

In her 33 years at the Law School, Professor Susan Williams has made a world of difference. Through the Center for Constitutional Democracy, she’s helped advise ethnic minority groups and women’s organizations in Burma. She’s worked with the Law Reform Commission of Liberia on potential constitutional amendments there. She’s worked closely with Middle Eastern leaders to generate conversation and connection, particularly among their women judges.

And that’s just a glimpse into her international work. Back home in Bloomington Williams has taught generations of students, some of whom have gone on to their own stellar academic careers.

As Williams begins retirement, a group of Indiana Law alumnae have come together to carry on their former teacher’s legacy of leadership and inspiration through the establishment of the Professor Susan H. Williams Feminism and Constitutions Lecture Series.

The group is aiming to raise $100,000 to create an annual lecture in perpetuity.

“This endowed lecture will be the first at the Law School named for a woman,” said Indiana Law Dean Christiana Ochoa, “but more importantly, it will commemorate the indelible contributions Professor Williams has made to the Maurer School of Law and to the world. A ‘Susan H. Williams Lecture’ will add immense value to our entire community for years to come.”

Give to the Williams Lecture Series

In memoriam: Arthur Lopez '83

Attorney. Advocate. Friend. Mentor. Coach.

Arthur Lopez was all these—and more—to communities from Washington, D.C. to Washington state, and most importantly to the communities at Indiana University and the Maurer School of Law. Whether it was in the courtroom, the classroom, or even in water, Lopez inspired those around him everywhere he went.

His unexpected death earlier this month has already sent a ripple of loss across the country.

A 1983 graduate of the Law School, Lopez was, at the time of his passing, a clinical professor of business law and ethics at the Kelley School of Business. Before joining the Kelley faculty in 2014 Lopez had nearly two dozen years of experience with the federal government, focusing as an attorney on ethics, general personnel issues, EEO and program oversight. Simultaneously, he served as the budget officer and as an associate general counsel for the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

While at the U.S. Department of Transportation, Lopez served as director of the Office of Civil Rights for the Federal Transit Administration, specializing in social justice issues. He also served as an attorney within the Office of Chief Counsel and as an ethics attorney in the Office of White House Counsel.

“Arthur was a proud graduate of the Law School and a lifelong champion of our community. Over many decades, he poured his heart into building and sustaining meaningful connections among our students, alumni, faculty, and staff — with a special devotion to our Latino community,” said Indiana Law Dean Christiana Ochoa. “His warmth, generosity, and unwavering commitment left an indelible mark on our school and I feel personally grateful for the kindness and support he showed me throughout the decades we shared at IU. His loss is felt deeply, and we will miss him dearly.”

Lopez was a founding member and chair of the Law School’s Latino Alumni Advisory Board. In a 2008 interview, he said the Law School’s Latino alumni had always been engaged, but not necessarily represented as a group. At the urging of then-Dean Lauren Robel, Lopez and the school’s alumni relations team brought together attorneys, judges, and business leaders from across the country to help the school recruit and retain Latino students and faculty, and give them mentorship and career guidance once in Bloomington. Though the board was launched under the all-inclusive umbrella of Latino alumni, Lopez recognized that there were plenty of distinctions within the community that sometimes went unseen.

“There is often no realization that our shared experiences as Latinos are so many times expressed by our differences,” Lopez said. “In recognition of this, we need to reach out to our students from wherever they have come and help them to find the right combination of support that fits their needs.”

The board remains active today, and benefits the entire Law School community.

Outside of the university, Lopez poured his heart and soul into bettering the lives of at-risk youth in local communities. A USA Certified Swim Coach, he founded and was president of Nadar Por Vida Inc. (“Swim for Life”), a nationally recognized nonprofit that gave members of the Washington, D.C. metro area—particularly Latino, at-risk, minority, first-generation, newly arrived and low-income children and their families—a chance to change their lives through competitive swimming.

“So many people want to help at-risk kids succeed. We now have a program that can help them achieve that,” Lopez said.

Rather than hold practices right after school, he wanted his swimmers to utilize the pool after dark, when the dangers and temptations of the streets might have dragged some of his kids away. And he called them all his kids, the hundreds who put on second-hand swimsuits and dollar store goggles to do something most of them had never done before—enjoy the water.

No matter who they were or where they came from, all of Lopez’s swimmers found a home in the pool. Lopez found something, too. Purpose.

As he reflected on Nadar Por Vida for a feature in The Washington Post, he came to realize he had at least one regret.

"I feel like I've blown it," he told the paper. "I should have been giving back a long time ago."

For all he gave to his many communities, Arthur Lopez will be remembered with love and gratitude. 

Moot Court teams, competitors earn national recognition

It was a banner year for the Law School’s moot court competitors, as one team brought home a championship trophy, multiple teams made deep runs in national tournaments, and several students earned impressive individual honors.

“For our external competitions against other schools, we had to have tryouts this year because we had a record number of applicants,” said Professor Lane McFadden, who teaches Legal Writing and Research and Appellate Advocacy and supervises the Law School’s appellate moot court programs. “The rising 2Ls are now excited because the students who are only a year or two ahead of them have done it and have enjoyed some success, which has elevated the visibility of our program.”

Maurer students saw great success at oral argument competitions this year. The team honors were led by 2025 graduates Annie Hoodecheck and Emma Leonard, who brought home the title in the Anderson Center Seventh Circuit Moot Court Competition, held at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago in March.

“That was exciting to win,” McFadden said. “To see Anne and Emma do so well was remarkable, but additionally, after the competition I started getting emails from the school that administers the competition and attorneys who judged it praising our students not just for their ability, but for how personable and great they were to be around. That makes us even more proud.”

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Lubin earns IU Outstanding Junior Faculty Award

Associate Professor Asaf Lubin will be recognized this fall with Indiana University's Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, the most prestigious campus-level award available specifically to pre-tenure faculty. The award is designed to identify the most promising untenured faculty and assist them in the development of their research programs and creative activities.

“Professor Lubin has become an integral part of the Law School faculty since he joined us in 2020,” said Dean Ochoa. “At a time when law struggles to keep pace with the realities of cyber conflict and pervasive surveillance, Professor Lubin’s research has a global impact. As an instructor, he’s quickly established an outstanding reputation as evidenced by the three teaching awards he’s earned in just five years.”

Professor Lubin’s scholarship examines how law mediates the exercise of power in domains shaped by mandated secrecy, technological complexity, and national security imperatives. His work explores the regulatory architectures that govern everything from artificial intelligence and cyber conflict to intelligence gathering and informational privacy.

Drawing on tools from human rights law, private law, and international law, Lubin maps the shifting boundaries of accountability in an era where governmental authority is increasingly delegated to opaque systems and distributed technologies. In doing so, he reveals how code now functions as a central medium for twenty-first-century statecraft and argues for legal frameworks equipped to confront this reconfiguration of authority.

In addition to dozens of published academic articles, book chapters, and invited symposium contributions, Lubin is the author of two forthcoming books: “The International Law of Intelligence: The World of Spycraft and the Law of Nations” (Oxford University Press) and “Teaching Cybersecurity Law and Policy” (Edward Elgar). The Law School hosted a book launch event for “The International Law of Intelligence” this spring, and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies—where Lubin is an affiliated faculty member—also hosted a panel discussion with Lubin and two national security law scholars in advance of the book’s publication at the end of the year.

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