Cooley Law School Adds 6 Faculty Members

As Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Tampa Bay campus in Riverview prepares for the fall term, Associate Dean Jeff Martlew announced the addition of six full-time faculty members.

The new faculty members include Karen Fultz, Robert Savage and Patrick Tolan. An additional three full-time professors are transferring from Cooley’s Michigan campuses and include Paul Carrier, Daniel Matthews and Stevie Swanson.

“We are focused on providing our students with a practice ready legal education and we do this by having the best practitioners available teaching our students,” said Jeff Martlew, associate dean at Cooley Law School’s Tampa Bay campus. “Professors Fultz, Savage, Tolan, Carrier, Matthews and Swanson bring years of practical hands-on law experience to Cooley. Their combined legal and academic experiences are sure to provide our students with a solid legal education.”

Fultz, who will teach Torts, most recently practiced Commercial, Business, Subrogation and Recovery Litigation, as well as Family Law at the law firm of Cozen O’Connor in Atlanta. She previously served as assistant vice president at Bank of America in the Estate Settlement Division. Fultz earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Michigan State University and a juris doctor from Cooley Law School.   

Savage will serve as the director of Cooley’s Debt Relief Clinic and will teach various courses on financial law. The pro bono clinic will be available for residents of Hillsborough County who are struggling with debt related legal issues and will be staffed by Cooley students and practicing attorneys from the community. Savage is the founding shareholder of the Savage Law Firm where he focused his practice on corporate transactions and business litigation. Earlier in his career, Savage was a founding shareholder at Tampa based GunnAllen Financial, Inc., where he was chief legal counsel and chief compliance officer.  He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Florida and a juris doctor and master’s degree from the University of Florida’s Colleges of Law and Business Administration.

Tolan will join Cooley’s faculty teaching classes in Tax Law and Business Law. He has been a law professor since 1995, beginning his career at the United States Air Force Academy’s (USAFA) Department of Law. Since 2005, Tolan has taught various classes at Barry University School of Law in Orlando. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the USAFA, juris doctor from the University of Michigan Law School, and dual master of laws degrees from George Washington Law School.

Carrier, who most recently taught at Cooley’s Grand Rapids campus, will join the faculty at the Tampa Bay campus teaching International Law, Oil and Gas Law, and Contracts and Sales. Before joining Cooley, he worked as an international corporate associate with Lovells in Prague, where he worked on mergers and acquisitions and international distribution agreements, among other specialties. He served as a professor of law for the Institute for International Relations and Law Approximation, Faculty of Law Comenius University, Slovak Republic. Carrier earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan, juris doctor at Michigan State University’s Detroit College of Law and a master of laws at Georgetown University Law Center.

Matthews joined the Cooley faculty at the school’s Auburn Hills, Mich., campus in 2003 from the Michigan law firm of Cox, Hodgman & Giarmarco, P.C., where he specialized in taxation, corporate law, and estate planning. Before working at Cox, Hodgman & Giarmarco, Matthews worked as an associate at Timmis & Inman, a prominent Detroit law firm, and as a tax consultant with Deloitte & Touche. Matthews will join Tampa Bay’s faculty teaching Business Organizations, Tax, and Wills Estates and Trusts. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University (MSU), juris doctor from MSU’s Detroit College of Law and a master of laws from New York University School of Law.

Swanson most recently taught Property Law and Secured Transactions Law at Cooley’s Auburn Hills, Mich., campus. She will teach Property Law and Slavery and Human Trafficking electives at the Tampa Bay campus. Before joining Cooley in 2006, Swanson served as director of legal services and policy for Community Legal Resources in Detroit. There she supervised the pro bono program, provided direct legal services to nonprofit corporations in Michigan, and facilitated the Affordability Preservation Project. Swanson earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and juris doctor at the University of Michigan Law School.

Cooley Law School opened its Tampa Bay campus in May 2012 at 9445 Camden Field Parkway, Riverview. The campus now offers morning, afternoon and evening classes. When classes start for the fall term in September, Cooley’s Tampa Bay campus will have approximately 370 students and 16 full-time faculty, 13 part-time faculty and 20 support staff personnel.