Noora Balooshi recently joined our academic affairs team as a program coordinator. In that role, she helps plan and coordinate the schedule of classes with faculty, adjunct faculty, administration, main campus, and the registrar's office. She works directly with Kirsten Engel, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and our registrar, Lissette Calderon.

 

Our academic affairs department has hundreds of moving pieces to organize so that we can provide students with almost 100 classes each term. We offer as many classes as larger law schools -- but in smaller settings where faculty and students get to know each other. More than 80 percent of our second and third year classes have fewer than 25 students.

 

Noora came to us from the Graduate College on main campus where she helped to manage graduate admissions. She received her undergraduate degree in history from the U of A in 2012. During her time as a student, she was active in student affairs and on-campus activities.

  

When she's not at Arizona Law, she spends most of her time with her dog, Barkley, or on her yoga mat, with some gardening and cycling sprinkled in. Starting next month, she will begin training to become a certified yoga instructor.

 

 

 

Our new Director of Global Programs, Cristina Castaneda (LLM '07), comes to the College from the National Law Center for InterAmerican Free Trade, where she served as Research and Development Director. We profiled Cristina in a prior Wildcat Wednesday-Letter of the Law.

 

Arizona Law has become a leader in global legal education. More than 25 percent of the incoming JD class, and about 30 percent of all new students coming to the College each year are from outside of the U.S.  

 

Cristina is directly responsible for managing our portfolio of four exciting programs offered at Arizona Law: the Advanced JD program, the LLM and the SJD programs in International Trade and Business Law and the Master of Legal Studies. Students also come from around the world seeking an LLM or SJD in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy, or the new masters degree (MPS) in Indigenous Governance.   

 

Cristina is also involved in the development of law school partners located all over the world. She represented our global programs during the Arizona Law in DC Week meeting with embassy staff and international trade associates. 

 

Our growing Global Programs have brought new insights to the classroom and created a global network for all of our students, whether they are from Marana or Montana or Mongolia. Our programmatic efforts to respond to the global practice of law and business, and to the demand for a first rate U.S. legal education, increases our worldwide prominence, brings extraordinary new knowledge and perspectives into the first year and upper division courses, expands the connections between our faculty expertise and emerging markets, and transforms our alumni community.

Cristina's LLM Graduation

 

In addition to her LLM in International Trade and Business Law, Cristina has a law degree from her home country of El Salvador. She has worked as a research attorney in international development projects in Latin America and Kenya. Her main focus has been legal reform to improve access to credit and the modernization of the judicial system through the introduction of oral (and adversarial) trials.  

 

Cristina loves the desert scene, but -- like Tristany --has a fondness for the sea. She enjoys time with her husband and their cat, and teaching, whether for lawyers, graduate students, or as a volunteer with Lawyers for Literacy tutoring elementary school students to improve their reading skills.  

 

You can contact Cristina at acc1@email.arizona.edu.