Nashville, Tenn.–For Professor JoAnne A. Epps, the essence of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law is a place where young lawyers are taught, trained, nurtured, and inspired to become the next generation of leaders in their profession and in our world. It is a vision shaped by more than 30 years of teaching law at Temple and rooted in her service before that as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia and Deputy City Attorney in Los Angeles. At its core are the values that for Epps define the legal profession: service, integrity, and passion.
As Dean of Temple Law School, a position she held from July 2008 until her appointment as Executive Vice President and Provost of Temple University in July 2016, Epps was an outspoken advocate for legal education that emphasized institutional responsiveness over a one-size-fits-all curricular model. National Jurist Magazine named her among the 25 most influential people in legal education for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, citing her leadership in implementing this approach at Temple. Her commitment to curricular innovation and experiential legal education garnered Temple significant praise, in particular for its innovative first-year experiential courses and nationally recognized clinical opportunities. It also inspired the creation of the Stephen and Sandra Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple Law School, which introduces students to the many roles that lawyers can play in securing access to civil justice.
Professor Epps’ professional leadership and influence extend far beyond Temple Law School. Long a champion for women and minorities within the profession, she served in numerous roles in service to the legal profession, including leadership roles in the American Bar Association, the National Association of Women Lawyers and the American Law Institute affiliate, ALI-ABA. In recognition of this service, Epps has been awarded a 2015 Spirit of Excellence Award by the American Bar Association, the 2015 M. Ashley Dickerson Award by the National Association of Women Lawyers, and the 2014 Justice Sonia Sotomayor Diversity Award by the Philadelphia Bar Association. She is a three-time honoree by Lawyers of Color Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Black lawyers in the country. In 2009, the Philadelphia Bar Association recognized Epps’ efforts by honoring her with the Sandra Day O’Connor Award, conferred annually on “a woman attorney who has demonstrated superior legal talent, achieved significant legal accomplishments and has furthered the advancement of women in both the profession and the community.” In addition to serving Temple Law students, Epps is a principal of The Red Bee Group, and serves on the board of directors of both public and nonprofit entities.
Epps’ passion and integrity have earned her respect as a community leader as well. From 2015 to 2017, Epps served as inaugural chair of Philadelphia’s Police Oversight Board formed in response to a recent Justice Department report about Philadelphia police shootings. Appointed by the United States District Court, from 2011 to 2019 Epps served as monitor of the City of Philadelphia’s compliance with the settlement of Bailey v. City of Philadelphia, litigation challenging the City’s stop-and-frisk procedures. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Defender Association of Philadelphia since 1991, and from 1999 to 2006 served as Board President. In 2001, Professor Epps was appointed by Philadelphia Mayor John Street to serve as Chair of the Mayor’s Task Force on Police Discipline. She has served as a member of the Pennsylvania Judicial Independence Commission, a member of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Committee to Promote Fairness in the Judiciary, a member of the Pennsylvania Commission for Justice Initiatives, a member of the Advisory Council for the Pennsylvania Prison Society and a member of the Advisory Board of the Public Interest Law Center. She became an officer of the Pennsylvania Women’s Forum in 2010 and in 2013 became the President of that organization. She also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Committee of Seventy and a member of the Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia Advisory Board. For these and other significant contributions to the Commonwealth, in 2012 Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett named Epps a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania.
Like many gifted teachers, Professor Epps has not limited her teaching to the law school. Rather, her passion for both law and teaching has carried her around the globe, teaching advocacy skills and promoting the rule of law in a variety of international arenas. She has taught advocacy skills to prosecutors at the United Nation’s ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) in Arusha, Tanzania. Professor Epps has also taught courses in Beijing, China to Chinese lawyers enrolled in Temple’s LL.M. program and to lawyers from the Beijing Supreme People’s Procuratorate (the Chinese Prosecutor’s Office). In anticipation of the 2009 re-institution of jury trials in criminal cases in Japan, along with Temple Law School Professor Edward Ohlbaum, Professor Epps taught Jury Trial Advocacy to 20,000+ members of the Japanese Bar Association. And Professor Epps was the only academic member of a nine-person American team which provided training to Sudanese lawyers representing victims of the Darfur crisis. The training included substantive International Criminal Law, with a special focus on practice before the International Criminal Court, as well as Evidence and Advocacy. Each of these pursuits has been grounded in Epps’ firm belief that the rule of law is one of the best tools at our disposal for establishing peaceful, just societies and for relieving human suffering.
A native of Cheltenham, PA, Professor Epps received her B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1973 and is a 1976 graduate of Yale Law School. She lives with her husband in New Jersey.
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