Faculty Voices and Leadership
The newest members of the UB Law faculty bring global perspectives, diverse talents and real-world expertise to the classroom. This year’s incoming educators and rising leaders are enriching the law school experience for students and colleagues alike.
Introducing Karla Lellis, Lecturer in Law; Lauren Wilson, Associate Professor of Law; and Ievgen Zvieriev, Lecturer in Law.
New Faculty Voices
The newest members of the UB Law faculty bring global perspectives, diverse talents and real-world expertise to the classroom. This year’s incoming educators and rising leaders are enriching the law school experience for students and colleagues alike.
KARLA LELLIS’ extensive corporate career centered on the fraught world of cybersecurity. Drawing on that experience, her research examines how legal systems in the United States, Brazil and the European Union recognize “harm” after a data breach, and how damages are assessed. As a lecturer in law, she guides students in exploring the law’s response to the evolving challenges of digital life.
Lellis, a native of Brazil, earned her JD at Metropolitan University of Santos, near São Paolo. She spent many years doing corporate work in Brazil, specifically contract management and legal compliance. At the same time, she pursued a master of laws degree at Syracuse University College of Law and is now completing her Doctor of Juridical Science degree at Syracuse.
“Across the United States, people face growing breach and AI-driven harms—fraud, deepfakes and sextortion,” says Lellis. “We need clear guidance on prevention, evidence and fast redress.”
Associate Professor LAUREN WILSON is a classical guitarist by training. She earned her undergraduate degree in music performance, then a master’s degree in music theory, before entering a doctoral program at the Eastman School of Music. Along the way she discovered law, and the fascinating ways in which intellectual property law intersects with the lived experience of composers and performers.
She received her JD from the University of Michigan Law School. At the same time, she completed her PhD dissertation, which applies the insights of music theory to the development and further evolution of copyright law. She then spent two years in Washington, D.C., as a law clerk in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims before coming to UB Law, where she’ll teach both property law and intellectual property law this spring.
“My work in IP,” she says, “is concerned with who gets to own works, how the rules of ownership in IP relate to general theories of property, and how these legal questions do and do not align with how artistic communities view their work.”
IEVGEN ZVIERIEV knows the nuances of engaging all levels of students, having taught both undergraduates and graduate law students at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in his native Ukraine.
As a lecturer in law, he teaches Law 101 to undergraduates in the BA in Law program and is developing courses on the use of research in legal interpretation and on legal propaganda. He earned his bachelor’s degree in law from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, a master’s in law from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and a PhD in law at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, focusing on the theory of law and its application to international law. He has been a guest researcher at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany; at the University of Glasgow in Scotland; and at the University of Bonn, Germany.
“I start with very, very basic topics and cover a little bit of everything,” Zvieriev says of his Law 101 course. “I try to show them what law is, how it works, how different institutions use the law.”
Matthew Steilen Appointed Vice Dean for Academic Affairs
Community Through Leadership
ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP is about more than guiding programs—it’s about strengthening the community that supports them. Professor Matthew Steilen has long been a vital part of that community. In his new role as vice dean for academic affairs, he brings both vision and experience to guiding the law school’s curriculum, supporting faculty, and advancing initiatives that enrich academic life at the law school.
A member of the UB Law faculty since 2011, Steilen has been deeply engaged in service to the school and the university, chairing multiple committees and leading the development of the undergraduate program in law. The program, which launched in 2018, now graduates over 100 BA majors each year.
The law school’s William J. Magavern Faculty Scholar, Steilen teaches and writes primarily in the areas of constitutional law and legal history and serves as an affiliated faculty member in UB’s department of philosophy. He has been a visiting legal scholar at the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin and was twice awarded a short-term fellowship to conduct research at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. In 2024, he was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University in England, where he worked on his forthcoming book, Inventing Parliament: The Formation of a Legislative Power in Medieval England, 1100–1350.