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August 19, 2016
By: Research

Mary Davis is the Stites & Harbison Professor of Law and was named a 2016-2017 University Research Professor. She has been on the UK College of Law faculty for 25 years. Her work on federal preemption of state products liability laws has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

She says her research has a direct connection to what she does in the classroom. “I'm about to begin teaching the Torts class for first-year law students. My scholarship is in the Torts law subset of products liability. Knowing the foundational historical background, knowing the trends, knowing where the law is changing, enables me to help my students understand where we've been—because lawyers have to understand where we've been—and where we’re going,” Davis says.

She describes a law professor as part anthropologist, part theorist and philosopher, and part translator. “Some of my scholarship, and most of my colleagues’, is driven to help the practice of law: describing complicated areas of the law and making it clearer for lawyers and judges.”

In this podcast, Davis talks about the engaged faculty and passionate student community at the College of Law and how law scholarship impacts society.