Collingswood Woman Named Dean At Rutgers-Camden Law School

COLLINGSWOOD, NJ - Collingswood resident Kimberly Mutcherson is making history at the Rutgers University Law School in Camden.

The noted bioethics and health law scholar and higher education leader has become the first woman, the first African American, and the first LGBT law dean at Rutgers, the school announced on Wednesday.

She succeeds Michael Cahill, who recently was named dean and president of Brooklyn Law School. Mutcherson will serve as Rutgers Law co-dean in Camden and will work collaboratively with Co-Dean David Lopez at Rutgers in Newark.

She most recently served as vice dean at Rutgers Law School in Camden, where she is a professor. Her scholarship addresses issues related to reproductive justice, with a particular focus on assisted reproduction and its relationship to how the law understands and constructs the meaning of family, maternal-fetal decision-making, and healthcare decisions for minors.

“Kim Mutcherson is a collaborative leader who is positioned to build upon the momentum and energy of Rutgers Law,” Rutgers University–Camden Chancellor Phoebe A. Haddon said. “She is passionate about the value of a legal education that prepares creative thinkers who are ready to be leaders in virtually every aspect of our society. She sees with clarity the role of the law in protecting individual rights.

“Under Co-Dean Mutcherson’s leadership, Rutgers Law in Camden will expand its focus on providing equal access to opportunity for our students and for the citizens of New Jersey, the Delaware Valley, and the nation.”

Rutgers Law School is one of the largest law schools in the nation. With locations in Camden and Newark, Rutgers Law has a geographic presence in the Philadelphia and New York metropolitan regions, two of the largest legal markets in the United States, and a supportive alumni network of more than 20,000 nationwide.

“I am thrilled to be able to continue my service to Rutgers Law as co-dean. Working with David Lopez, I know that our institution has a very bright future and will continue to provide a high-quality legal education and produce lawyers who change the profession and the world for the better,” Mutcherson said.

Mutcherson joined Rutgers University–Camden as an assistant professor in 2002. She was promoted to associate professor in 2005 and to professor in 2013. She has served as vice dean since 2015.

At Rutgers Law, she teaches Bioethics, Babies and Babymaking, Family Law, South African Constitutional Law, and Torts, among other courses. She spearheaded an effort to increase the availability of academic support for Rutgers Law School students and has served as a member of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program Advisory Board and as faculty advisor for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender student organization (OUTLaws) and Black Law Students Association.

A noted scholar on issues related to reproductive justice, assisted reproduction, and abortion, she is the author of numerous articles on the topics in such publications as the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Indiana Law Journal, the Hastings Center Report, and the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book Assisted Reproductive Justice (University of California Press) and the editor of the book Rewriting Reproductive Justice: Feminist Judgments and Reproductive Justice (Cambridge University Press).

She has served as a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. In 2013, she received the Center for Reproductive Rights Innovation in Scholarship Award.

Prior to joining Rutgers Law School, Mutcherson was a consulting attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights and a Fellow and then staff attorney with the HIV Law Project, both in New York. She serves on the advisory boards of the Lawyering Project and the What We Know Project and has served on the Women’s Law Project board.

In 1997, Mutcherson earned her juris doctor from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and received the Samuel I. Rosenman Prize for her commitment to public interest law. She also earned the Kirkland & Ellis public interest fellowship and co-founded the Women of Color Coalition. She received her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994.

She lives in Collingswood with her son Max, 13, and her daughter Josephine, 10. She grew up in Silver Spring, Md., where her father, James Mutcherson, still lives.

The attached image of Kimberly Mutcherson was provided by Rutgers University-Camden.