Spetses Program Faculty

Professor Anastasia Grammaticaki-Alexiou

Professor Grammaticaki-Alexiou is professor of private international law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She graduated from the Law School of the Aristotle University and holds a Ph.D. from the same University. She has done graduate work at The Hague Academy of International Law and in England (King’s College). As a visiting professor she has taught in several American law schools, including Loyola College of Law and Tulane Law School in New Orleans and has also taught in the inter-university Master on Human Rights and Democratisation in Venice, Italy and has taught international commercial law at the MA Program in International and EU Business Law at Neapolis University in Paphos, Cyprus, and cultural property protection at the MA in Art, Law and Economy of the International Hellenic University of Thessaloniki.

She is the president of the Committee of Private International Law of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She has participated in legislative work both in Greece and in the EU and has been a judge in the Special Supreme Court of Greece. She is member of the Advisory Committee of the Cyprus University Law School in Nicosia, Cyprus. She has published widely (several books and numerous articles), both in Greece and abroad. Her interests also include cultural property protection, human rights, cyberspace law, and biotechnology as regards private international law.

Professor Arthur A. Crais, Jr.

Professor Arthur A. Crais, Jr. studied history and Political Science at the Universitat Hamburg prior to receiving his B.A. in Political Science with Honors from Tulane University. He served as law clerk to the Honorable William Redman of the Louisiana Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit, prior to beginning the practice of maritime law. Mr. Crais has been an Adjunct Lecturer at Loyola College of Law since 2009 where he has taught Marine Insurance and Rights, Remedies and Damages in a Marine Disaster.

Professor Crais currently serves as the Chairman of the Advisory Board to the Loyola Maritime Law Journal. After being in private practice, he became the Senior Counsel to Shell Oil Company in New Orleans where he was responsible for maritime and offshore litigation and arbitration. He currently serves as Legal Consultant to Shell Oil Company for maritime matters and issues including but not limited to marine accidents, maritime contracts, marine insurance, maritime arbitration, investigation of accidents, training personnel about reporting requirements under OCSLA and U.S. Coast Guard Regulations.

Dean María Pabón López

Dean María Pabón López is an expert in immigrants’ rights (including the education of immigrant children), immigration law and diversity/multicultural matters in the legal profession, focusing on issues concerning Latinos, race and the law, and the status of women lawyers. She has also published articles on Spain’s immigration law, as well as the impact of immigrant nurses on the nursing shortage in the U.S. She has done research in the areas of family law and inheritance law as it pertains to those who are not U.S. citizens.

A prolific author, Dean López has placed articles in journals such as the Harvard Latino Law Review, the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, the Hastings Women’s Law Journal and the Seton Hall Law Journal. Her latest book is Persistent Inequality: Contemporary Realities in The Education of Undocumented Latino/a Children (with Gerardo R. López), published by Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group in late 2009. Her current research project is an examination of hate crimes against immigrants in the U.S.

Dean López currently serves on the Diversity Committee of the Louisiana State Bar Association. She has served on the Indiana State Board of Law Examiners from 2008 to 2011, having been named to the board by Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard. She was also an appointed member of the Indiana Supreme Court's Court Interpreter Certification Advisory Board, a project of the Race and Gender Fairness Commission. She is an inaugural member of the Latino Affairs Committee of the Indiana State Bar. In addition, she serves on the editorial boards of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin and the Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (“CALI”) center. She has been a contributing editor to the Jotwell and Nuestras Voces Latinas blogs.

Dean López is the recipient of the 2011 Sigueme Award from the IUPUI Latino Students Association; of the 2008 Diversity Attorney in Practice Award from the Indiana Lawyer and the 2007 Rabb Emison Diversity Award from the Indiana State Bar Association. Professor López received the 2006 Trustees Teaching Award from Indiana University. She was named a Dean's Fellow in recognition of scholarly excellence at the Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis. She was the recipient of a Special Recognition Award from the Chair of the Second National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference held at the George Washington University School of Law in October of 2004. The law school's Hispanic Law Society (HLS) gave Professor López their 2004 Award "in recognition of her commitment to her students and loyal support of the HLS." She has also received awards from the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania, the Travis County Texas Women Lawyers Association (for contributions to the minority community) and from the University of Missouri Columbia School of Law, where she was a recipient of Faculty Performance Shares.

For the year 2010-11 Dean López was appointed to the Editorial Advisory Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners. The Editorial Advisory Committee reviews and comments on articles for publication in The Bar Examiner, which is published quarterly, and is the only national publication related to bar admissions. For 2011-2012, she will serve on the Diversity Committee of the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Also in 2010, she was elected to the American Law Institute (ALI), one of the highest honors in the legal profession.

Professor Kathryn Venturatos Lorio

Kathryn Venturatos Lorio is the Leon Sarpy Professor of Law at Loyola College of Law in New Orleans. She received her B.A. Degree from Newcomb College of Tulane University where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After receiving her J.D. from Loyola Law School where she was the Casenote Editor of the Loyola Law Review, she practiced with the law firm of Deutsch, Kerrigan, and Stiles in New Orleans, prior to joining Loyola’s law faculty. Her teaching and scholarly interests are in the areas of family law, health law, and the civil law of successions and donations. She has lectured and published extensively on the legal treatment of alternative reproductive techniques.

Professor Lorio is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a member of the American Law Institute, as well as a member of the Louisiana State Law Institute where she serves as a member of its Council and on the Committees revising Family Law and Successions and Donations. She is author of numerous articles, book chapters, and also the author of the LOUISIANA CIVIL LAW TREATISE ON SUCCESSIONS AND DONATIONS published by West Publishing Company.

Professor Lorio served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 1996-1997 and as Interim Dean in 2010-2011 for Loyola College of Law. She has taught with the Loyola Summer Legal Studies Program in Austria and the Tulane Summer Abroad Program in Greece and has lectured in Paris and at the International Bar Association Conference in Berlin. 

Fluent in the Greek language, Professor Lorio has visited Greece numerous times, having taught with the former Tulane Summer Abroad Program in Crete and in the Spetses program six times. In the spring of 2011 and again in 2012, she accompanied a group of law students on an experiential learning seminar trip to Greece where they attended lectures and observed first hand the social, legal and economic issues plaguing the nation. Professor Lorio will serve as the Spetses program Director.

Professor Mark B. Wessman

Mark B. Wessman is the Thomas J. André, Jr. Professor of Law at Tulane University. He received his B.A. summa cum laude from St. Olaf College, his M.A. with first class honors in philosophy and theology at Oxford University and his J.D. from Harvard University. Following graduation from law school, Professor Wessman clerked for US District Court Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in Los Angeles. He then practiced as a commercial litigator for six years with a major law firm. He joined the Tulane Law School faculty in 1987. His principal teaching and research interests are in contracts, secured transactions, and bankruptcy. He has received the Felix Frankfurter Award for Distinguished Teaching on two occasions. Professor Wessman has held visiting positions at the University of North Carolina School of Law, the University of South Carolina School of Law, and New York Law School.