The legal minds behind our reviews
Meet the scholars and practitioners who lend their expertise, integrity, and passion to the Burton Book Review Program.
Our Editorial Panel
The Committee ensures every review meets the Burton standard for clarity, rigor, and insight. Each member brings decades of leadership in law, teaching, and public service.
Janet Stearns
Lecturer, University of Miami School of Law
Janet Stearns is a graduate of Yale College (1984) and Yale Law School (1988). While at Yale Law, her article published in the Yale Law and Policy Review received the Yale award for Best Paper on Taxation. She recently celebrated her 25 th anniversary at the University of Miami School of Law, where she served as the Director of International and Graduate Programs for seven years, and then eighteen years as Dean of Students. At Miami Law, she has taught Legal Academic Writing and collaborated closely with the law reviews to promote published articles in national writing awards. Stearns is past chair of the AALS Student Services Section and currently chairs the Law School Committee of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs. She speaks nationally, writes and podcasts on law student wellbeing, and strategies for law schools and bar regulators to promote a culture of wellbeing in the profession.
Kristen Tiscione
Professor of Legal Writing, Georgetown Law
Kristen K. Tiscione is a Professor of Law, Legal Practice, at Georgetown University Law Center, where she has been teaching legal writing, upper-level writing seminars, and public speaking in the J.D. and LL.M. programs for over thirty years. In addition to teaching, she serves as a Co-Chair of the law school’s Professional Responsibility Committee and as a member of the Burton Awards’ Academic Committee. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown, she specialized in commercial litigation at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and Georgetown Law. Professor Tiscione’s scholarly interests include legal writing at the intersection of law, rhetoric, and composition and the role of legal writing in legal education.
She is the author of Legal Writing: From Advice to Advocacy (West 2021); an editor and co-author of Classical Rhetoric and Contemporary Law (Alabama 2024), and the author of two books translated into Italian, Using Classical Rhetoric to Write Clearly (Maggioli 2023) and Principles of Logical Reasoning (Maggioli 2024). She has also written several book chapters and numerous articles in her areas of interest. She has served as the President of the Legal Writing Institute and the Secretary of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. In 2024, she received the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing.
Susannah Barton Tobin
Ezra Ripley Thayer Senior Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School
Susannah Barton Tobin is the Ezra Ripley Thayer Senior Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She serves as Managing Director of the Climenko Fellowship Program & First-Year Legal Research and Writing Program and as Assistant Dean for Academic Career Advising. An award-winning teacher and advisor, she teaches courses on legal research and writing, legal scholarship, and Shakespeare and law. She is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Supreme Court Fellows Program and serves on the graduate council of The Harvard Crimson newspaper.
Dean Rowan
Director of Reference & Research Services, Berkeley Law Library
Dean C. Rowan is an academic law librarian, retired in 2025 from UC Berkeley School of Law, with professional experience in law firm and public libraries, youth daycare, stock brokerage, record store retail, bead-making, and seasonal neighborhood sales of fresh peaches via Radio Flyer wagon. Primarily a reference librarian, he also has substantial experience with bibliographic cataloging, network management, and system administration. Dean’s synthesized surf banjo playing appears on three Bruce Springsteen albums: Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Populist Snack. A member of the California State Bar, Dean earned respectable grades in school and has never once told a fib.
MaryAnne Lavan
Senior Legal Advisor & Ethics Governance Consultant
MaryAnne Lavan retired in March 2025 as SVP, general counsel and corporate secretary of Lockheed Martin after a 35-year career. Key background includes: – General counsel at Lockheed Martin from 2010, responsible for legal affairs and managing the law department – Joined Lockheed Martin in 1990 as assistant general counsel – Previously served as VP of ethics and business conduct, and VP of corporate internal audit – Currently serves on Board of Directors of MP Materials and several governing bodies including Equal Justice Works, University at Albany Foundation, Collegiate Directions Inc., and The Potomac School Please review this information and determine next steps for the Burton Book Review project.
Alan Untereiner
Founding Partner, Robbins Russell & Former Partner, Mayer Brown
Alan Untereiner is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B., Social Studies, 1984) and Yale Law School (1988), where he served as a Notes Editor on the Yale Law Journal. In 1984-85, he studied at the University of Munich on a Rotary Fellowship. After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Since then, Alan has lived in Washington, D.C., where he has worked as an appellate litigator in private practice, including stints as an associate at Onek, Klein & Farr (1989-91), an associate and partner at Mayer, Brown & Platt (1991-2001), and a founding partner and senior counsel at Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber LLP (2001-22). Alan has authored a handbook and several articles on federal preemption law and provided testimony on that subject to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
His wide-ranging appellate practice has included substantial work in the areas of product liability law, civil procedure, complex litigation (including class actions), remedies, prisoner and other civil rights litigation, federal criminal law (including gun crimes, extortion, and RICO), and constitutional law (including cases involving the freedom of speech and religion). He has argued, and won, three cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and represented individuals, companies, organizations, and municipalities — both as parties and amici — in scores of other cases in the Supreme Court. He has written a chapter on Supreme Court litigation in a leading treatise as well as several articles on the Court’s business docket. He is a member of the Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc. and the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court.
Cecilia A. Silver
Lecturer in Legal Practice, Senior Research Scholar in Law, and Director of Legal Research and Writing
Cecilia A. Silver is the inaugural Director of Legal Research and Writing, a Lecturer in Legal Practice, and a Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. She is responsible for developing and leading the legal research and writing program as well as teaching Introduction to Legal Research and Analysis, Essentials in Legal Research and Writing, Civil Pretrial Litigation, and Trial Practice. Before entering academia, Cecilia clerked for Judge Thomas P. Griesa in the Southern District of New York, served as Senior Counsel in the New York City Law Department’s Special Federal Litigation Division, and practiced complex commercial and intellectual property litigation at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. While in practice, Cecilia acted as lead counsel on more than 40 cases, handling all facets of trial preparation. She achieved favorable results for several pro bono clients, including obtaining a $750,000 verdict in an excessive-use-of-force trial and successfully briefing and arguing international and interstate child custody disputes before the Second Circuit and New York Appellate Division.
A first-generation lawyer, Cecilia is committed to increasing access to the legal profession. She has participated in SEO’s Law Institute for over a decade and teaches in Yale Law School’s Access to Law School and Launchpad Scholars pipeline programs.
Cecilia also contributes to the broader legal writing community as the Editor-in-Chief of the Legal Writing Institute’s Monograph Series and a member of its Teaching Resources Committee.
She graduated from Princeton University cum laude with an A.B. in Art and Archaeology, earned her Master of Studies in History of Art and Visual Culture with distinction from Oxford University, and received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. At Georgetown, Cecilia served as a Law Fellow teaching legal writing and was an Executive Editor of The Tax Lawyer.
Prof. Melissa Weresh
Drake Law School Professor
Melissa Weresh is a professor at Drake University Law School, where she has taught since 1997, specializing in legal writing, appellate advocacy, environmental law, and ethics and professional responsibility. She earned her J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law, where she was a member of the Law Review and graduated with Order of the Coif honors, and her B.A. from Wake Forest University, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Before joining academia, she practiced as an associate at Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs. A prolific scholar, her publications explore themes of pedagogy, persuasion, gender, and jurisprudence, with articles appearing in leading journals such as the Journal of Legal Education, Law and Inequality, and the Wake Forest Law Review. Her contributions to legal education have been recognized nationally with the Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing and the Warren E. Burger Prize for Legal Scholarship, among others. She has twice been named Stevens Faculty Scholar of the Year at Drake and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Legal Education and Legal Communication & Rhetoric: JALWD. A leader in the profession, she is a past president of the Legal Writing Institute and past chair of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Teaching Methods.
Interested in Contributing?
We occasionally expand our reviewer pool to include diverse voices across legal disciplines. If you’d like to be considered, contact the Program Coordinator.
How Books Are Chosen
Nomination
Committee compiles a long‑list of new releases from major presses.
Assignment
Titles are distributed to reviewers during scheduled meetings (see full timeline).
Evaluation
Reviewers analyze merit, clarity, and contribution to legal discourse before submitting 800–1,200‑word critiques.