Nell Jessup Newton

Joseph A. Matson Dean
Professor of Law

Office Number: 2100 Eck Hall of Law
Telephone: 574.631.6789
Email: Nell Newton
Staff Assistant: Julie Shook

Nell Jessup Newton became Notre Dame Law School’s 10th dean on July 1, 2009. Newton came to Notre Dame from her alma mater, Hastings College of the Law at the University of California, where she served as dean and professor since 2006. Newton also served as dean of the law schools at the University of Connecticut and the University of Denver, and taught at American University and Catholic University of America law schools.

Newton’s scholarship focuses on American Indian law with an emphasis on tribal property and federal constitutional issues. She is the author of more than 50 articles on Indian legal issues, co-author of the third edition of the textbook “Cases and Materials on American Indian Law,” and serves as the editor-in-chief of “Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law.” Her law review articles have been reprinted in collections on race law, the law of reparations, and the philosophy of law. She also served as an associate justice of the Yurok Tribal Supreme Court in 2008-2009.

Newton earned her bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in humanities with an emphasis on ancient Greek, and her law degree from UC Hastings, where she served as a member of the Thurston Society and the Order of the Coif and as managing editor of the Hastings Law Journal. She is active in scholarly and educational organizations including the American Association of Law Schools, the Law School Admissions Council, and the Law & Society Association; and is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Connecticut Bar Foundation.

About The Matson Chair

The Joseph A. Matson Chair in Law, established in 1988, is a gift from the estate of Sylvia F. Matson of Bolivar, New York, to endow the deanship of the Law School. Mrs. Matson, who died in 1985 at the age of 99, was the widow of Albert Matson, a Bolivar attorney with business interests in oil and gas. The chair honors the memory of the Matsons’ son, a 1942 graduate of the University who died in 1944 in an Air Force flight-training accident.