Mitchell Hamline School of Law is pleased to welcome its newest faculty members.
Nicole McConlogue, associate professor of law
Prof. Nicole McConlogue
Nicole McConlogue’s academic career has placed a strong focus on experiential education and public interest practice. Before joining Mitchell Hamline, she was clinic director at West Virginia University College of Law. There, she introduced several creative initiatives increasing students’ exposure to diverse forms of public interest advocacy and enhancing the impact of the clinical program on low-income communities statewide.
Professor McConlogue also completed a clinical teaching fellowship at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Prior to that experience, she held positions managing a pro bono program and working as a disability benefits lawyer.
Professor McConlogue’s scholarly interests concern economic mobility and span a range of substantive topics including consumer protection, competition law, poverty law, and technological surveillance of the poor. Her forthcoming article “The Road to Autonomy” proposes a new approach to problem-solving in the context of transportation justice which recognizes positive individual rights.
Vonda Brown, assistant teaching professor
Prof. Vonda Brown
Vonda Brown joins Mitchell Hamline’s full-time faculty after several years as an adjunct professor, having taught courses on administrative law, constitutional law, environmental law, and trial advocacy. Most recently a staff attorney at the ACLU of Minnesota, Brown worked on constitutional law and civil rights cases.
She previously worked as an assistant attorney general in the child support division of the Texas attorney general’s office from 2016 to 2022, including three years as an attorney trainer.
A 2014 graduate of Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Texas Southern University, Brown earned CALI Excellence awards in legal writing as a law student and was the lead articles editor for the Thurgood Marshall Law Review, where she also published “Introduction: A History of Civil Rights Issues from Education to Voting Rights and Their Modern Implications.”
Sarita Matheson, assistant teaching professor
Prof. Sarita Matheson
Sarita Matheson was drawn to law school and the legal profession after earning her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a graduate degree in molecular, cellular, and development biology and genetics from the University of Minnesota.
A 2014 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, Matheson served as an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow with Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. At Legal Aid, she represented children in immigration cases and consulted on state-court proceedings. She also clerked for Judge Edward Wahl.
Matheson has practiced at Kelley Drye & Warren in Chicago and Carlson Caspers Vandenburgh & Lindquist in Minneapolis, where she handled matters involving intellectual property, antitrust, and contracts. She also mentored new attorneys on research and writing, and launched a firm-wide pro-bono program serving migrants at the U.S. Mexico border.
Alisha Watkins ’20, assistant teaching professor
Prof. Alisha Watkins ’20
Alisha Watkins joined Mitchell Hamline’s Institute to Transform Child Protection as an assistant teaching professor in November 2022. She works closely with students in the institute’s clinic who represent parents and kin in child protection cases. Watkins also helped develop the institute’s first community kinship event this spring, aimed at establishing community engagement regarding kinship representation.
Before joining Mitchell Hamline, Watkins was a senior paralegal and law clerk for more than 15 years. She also became a volunteer guardian ad litem to represent the best interests of children in child welfare proceedings.
Watkins attended both law school and undergrad while working full time and raising her children, utilizing Mitchell Hamline’s blended-learning enrollment option. She was the school’s first Hybrid/EJD representative for the Black Law Students Association, during which she spearheaded the creation of a national mentorship program for the group’s members.
Mitchell Hamline faculty
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