Notre Dame Law School Announces Faculty Promotions for Susan Azyndar and Msgr. John Paul Kimes

Two members of the Notre Dame Law School faculty, Susan Azyndar and Msgr. John Paul Kimes, have been promoted effective July 1, 2026.

“Susan Azyndar and Msgr. John Paul Kimes both embody Notre Dame Law School’s commitment to excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service,” said G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law. “Their work has enriched our community and helped shape our students as lawyers and leaders. These well-deserved promotions recognize the leadership they provide and their significant contributions to the Law School and our mission.”

Susan Azyndar

Susan Azyndar has been promoted to Librarian at the Kresge Law Library. Azyndar joined the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 2020 as an Associate Librarian and has served in several leadership roles, including Senior Associate Director, and currently, Acting Director. In these roles, she leads the Law Library’s efforts to support teaching, scholarship, and research. She also teaches legal writing, legal research, and advanced legal research courses, and publishes and presents on legal research pedagogy and artificial intelligence.

Before joining Notre Dame Law School, she worked at the Moritz Law Library at The Ohio State University as a reference librarian. She was also an attorney for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Azyndar earned her J.D. from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. She has a Master of Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.) degree from the University of Washington.

She is active in the law librarianship profession. She previously served as treasurer of the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries and as chair of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Copyright Committee. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of The Second Draft and as a member of the editorial board of Legal Reference Services Quarterly.

Msgr. John Paul Kimes

Msgr. John Paul Kimes has been promoted to Professor of the Practice and appointed the Mark Moritz and Family Memorial Professor of the Practice, an endowed professorship.

He teaches and writes in the fields of canon law, church governance, religious liberty, and the legal dimensions of clergy discipline and safeguarding. A priest of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, he earned degrees in theology and canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, where he completed the J.C.O.D., the ecclesiastical equivalent of a doctorate, with highest honors. In 2025, he was ordained to the Order of Periodeut with the title of Monsignor.

Before joining Notre Dame, Msgr. Kimes served in the Discipline Section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he worked on matters involving the prosecution of serious canonical offenses. He has also taught at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, the Pontifical Urbaniana University, and the University of Notre Dame’s Rome Program.

An internationally recognized scholar of canon law, Msgr. Kimes has published extensively on penal law, ecclesiastical governance, the protection of minors and vulnerable persons, Eastern Catholic Churches, and the administration of justice in the Church. He is a frequent lecturer at universities, professional conferences, and ecclesiastical institutions throughout North and South America and Europe.

He is the Raymond of Peñafort Fellow of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and a Fellow of the Religious Liberty Initiative.