The University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law has added four new faculty members for the 2020-21 academic year.

The new professors include Aaron Schwabach, associate professor of law, Rebecca Feldmann, assistant professor of clinical education and director of Bowen’s new Veterans Legal Services Clinic, Desireé Slaybaugh, visiting assistant professor of law, and Carolyn Ryburn, visiting assistant professor of law.

“Each of these professors brings to the classroom a wealth of experience in both the classroom and practice as well as a passion for teaching. Our students will benefit greatly from that,” said Theresa Beiner, Bowen’s dean. “We are excited to have them join Bowen’s faculty, and I look forward to working with each of them.”

An international law scholar, Schwabach’s scholarly interests range from property-related topics, including intellectual property, international and domestic environmental law, and the inheritance laws of the European Union, to the law of war and the complex legal and cultural legacy of Thomas Jefferson. An advocate for the Rule of Law internationally, Schwabach has worked with the American Bar Association’s Central and Eastern European Law Initiative and Rule of Law Initiative to strengthen the development of the rule of law across the world.

Schwabach is the past editor of two pieces in UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. He is also a current member of the editorial board of the Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law.

An advocate for Americans who cannot afford legal representation, Feldmann began her legal career as an attorney at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, where she represented low-income immigrants and their U.S. citizen family members in a variety of immigration proceedings.

Before joining the Bowen faculty, Feldmann held clinical teaching positions at Villanova, Seton Hall, and Georgetown, where she supervised students representing survivors of trauma in administrative proceedings.

Prior to joining Bowen, Slaybaugh served two years as a Westerfield Teaching Fellow at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and one year as a C.V. Starr Lecturer of Law at the Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China, where she also taught contracts drafting and international human rights law.

Before transitioning to teaching, Slaybaugh practiced at a nationally recognized plaintiffs’ law firm in Dallas and devoted pro bono services to a local human rights nonprofit.

A Bowen graduate, Ryburn worked in private practice for the Barber Law Firm in Little Rock and as an in-house counsel prior to transitioning to teaching. In practice, she specialized in insurance coverage defense and workers’ compensation litigation, including practicing before the Arkansas trial and appellate courts.

Ryburn then worked as employment counsel for Simmons Bank, a multibillion-dollar bank with locations in eight states. While in-house, she managed and practiced in employment litigation before the Arkansas Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, various states’ unemployment agencies, and in courts throughout the company’s multi-state footprint.