Rhonda Wasserman

Rhonda Wasserman consistently receives high marks as a teacher from both her students and colleagues. She received the Law School's Excellence-in-Teaching Award twice, once in 1990 and again in 2005, and she received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2000. Her scholarly interests are diverse and varied. She has published articles on interstate and international recognition of judgements; selected family law topics from a conflict-of-laws perspective; federal class action practice; state court jurisdiction; and federal removal practice, in such journals as Notre Dame Law Review,  Minnesota Law Review, and Boston University Law Review. She has written a treatise on procedural due process.

Before joining the Pitt law faculty in 1986, she practiced law with the New York firm of Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where she handled corporate takeover and other business litigation. She is a former member of the board of directors of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Education

• JD, Yale Law School
• AB, Cornell University

Specialization

• Civil Procedure
• Conflict of Laws

Selected Publications

Books:

• Procedural Due Process: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution (Praeger 2004)

Law Review Articles:

• Legal Process in a Box, or What Class Action Waivers Teach Us About Law-making, 44 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 391 (2012).
• Secret Class Action Settlements, 31 ev. Litig. 889 (2012).
• Transnational Class Actions and Interjurisdictional Preclusion, 86 Notre Dame L. Rev. 313 (2011).
• DOMA and the Happy Family: A Lesson in Irony, 47 CAL. W. INT'L L.J. 275 (2010).
• Are You Still My Mother?: Interstate Recognition of Adoptions by Gays and Lesbians 58 Am. U. L. Rev. 1 (2008).
• The Curious Complications with Back-end Opt-out Rights, 49 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 373 (2007).
• Tolling: The American Pipe Tolling Rule and Successive Class Actions, 58 Fla. L. Rev. 803 (2006).
• Dueling Class Actions, 80 B.U. L. Rev. 461 (2000).

SSRN Author Page

Awards and Honors

• Dukeminier Award, granted by the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law (2009)

• Elected Member, American Law Institute (2004)

• Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award (2000)

• Excellence in Teaching Award (2005)

• Excellence in Teaching Award (1990)

Selected Professional Activities

• Member, Consultative Group on Restatement (Third) of the United States Law of International Commercial Arbitration (2009-present)
• Member, Advisory Board, British Institute of International and Comparative Law project on The Effect in the European Community of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters: Recognition, Res Judicata and Abuse of Process (2007-08)
• Member, Consultative Group on Aggregate Litigation of the American Law Institute (2005-09)
• Reporter, Local Rules Committee of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (2001-09)
• Member, Advisory Committee for the Study of Rules of Practice, United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (2003-present; pro tem 2001-03)