Welcome New Faculty
“We are delighted to welcome these five outstanding faculty members to our law school community," says Dean Ronald Weich. "Zina Makar and Shanta Trivedi are rising stars in their fields who are filling teaching needs in criminal law and family law, two areas in which UB has always been strong. Erica J. Suter and Melinda Dunmire are directing two important clinics, while Marta Baffy bolsters our growing academic support program.

"This newest wave of UB faculty members will help us maintain a tradition of student-focused teaching excellence.”
Professor Zina Makar returns to Baltimore Law, where from 2016 to 2019 she was a clinical teaching fellow and co-director of the Pretrial Justice Clinic, which she co-founded. Prior to that, she was a public defender and Open Society Fellow at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. In 2017 she was named Public Interest Attorney of the Year by the Baltimore City Bar Association. She teaches criminal law.

Makar's scholarship examines the intersection of civil rights and criminal law, with a specific focus on detainee rights. Her latest article on the right to vote in jails is forthcoming in the University of Southern California Law Review. In 2020, she published "Unnecessary Incarceration" in the Oregon Law Review.

After completing her Baltimore Law fellowship in 2019, Makar became a teaching fellow in the Civil Rights Clinic and Voting Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. While at Georgetown she earned her Master of Laws in Advocacy.

Makar has a B.S. from University of Maryland and a J.D. from University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Professor Shanta Trivedi returns to Baltimore Law, where from 2016 to 2020 she was a clinical teaching fellow in the Bronfein Family Law Clinic. She is teaching family law and directs the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts.

After concluding her fellowship at Baltimore Law, Trivedi spent one year at Georgetown Law Center, as a clinical teaching fellow and women’s law and public policy fellow in the Domestic Violence Clinic.

Through her work, Trivedi takes on the myriad challenges facing low-income, minority and otherwise disadvantaged families in the child welfare system.

Her most recent scholarly publication is The Harm of Child Removal, published in the New York University Review of Law & Social Change (2019).

Prior to entering teaching, Trivedi was an attorney in the family defense practice at Brooklyn Defender Services in New York.

She has a B.A. in journalism from New York University and a J.D. from Boston University.
Professor Melinda Dunmire is professor of the practice and director of the law school’s Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic. Prior to joining the faculty, she was assistant to the Maryland Comptroller, where she provided general counsel on legal and policy matters, monitored federal tax law changes, and led legislative workgroups, among other duties.

Dunmire also has extensive experience as a hearing officer for the Comptroller’s Office and as a guest lecturer on tax matters at law schools and professional organizations. She earned her bachelor’s, Master of Laws in Taxation, and J.D. degrees at The University of Baltimore, as well as a certificate in nonprofit management from the Community College of Baltimore County.
Professor Erica J. Suter is professor of the practice and the director of the Innocence Project Clinic, a unique and collaborative position with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and the School of Law.
 
Suter joins Baltimore Law from private practice, where she has been widely recognized as an accomplished appellate and post-conviction criminal defense attorney.

In addition to her private practice, Suter gained experience working with students at Georgetown University and UDC’s David A. Clarke School of Law. She earned a B.A. from Bates College, a master’s from University of Chicago, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Professor Marta Baffy joins the faculty as director of academic success and professor of the practice. She came from Georgetown University Law Center, where for five years she was faculty director of its two-year LL.M. program and taught a number of courses on legal research and writing, working with legal texts, linguistics and English for non-native speakers.

Baffy has provided legal services to a variety of diverse communities, and she has published and presented widely on pedagogical practice in law schools. She earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and both a master’s and a doctorate in linguistics from Columbia and Georgetown, respectively. Her J.D. is from Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.
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