Sept. 23, 2009

Cooley Law School’s Lansing Campus Adds Two Professors

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School today announced that Patricia Thorpe-Mock has been appointed to associate professor and Karen Truszkowski has been appointed to assistant professor at Cooley’s Lansing campus. Truszkowski had been a visiting faculty member at Cooley since 2007 and Mock had been a visiting faculty member at Cooley since 2008.

Both Mock and Truszkowski will continue to serve as faculty supervisors for the Sixty Plus Inc., Elderlaw Clinic. As faculty supervisors, they oversee student interns as they represent clients who are more than 60 years old in civil matters.

“These new faculty will bring decades worth of practical legal experience to the clinic and are very qualified to take what our students have learned in the classroom and translate it into real world experiences,” Associate Dean of Faculty Charles P. Cercone said.

Truszkowski currently serves as a magistrate for the 52-3 District Court in Rochester Hills, Mich., and previously served as a United Auto Workers Legal Services staff attorney in Dearborn and Saline, Mich. and as an associate attorney at Fletcher, Wolf, Pianto & Associates in Flint, Mich. She also has taught elder law at Eastern Michigan University.

Truszkowski received an undergraduate degree in psychology and sociology from Eastern Michigan University and graduated cum laude from Cooley Law School with a juris doctor.

Mock has previously worked as an associate professor at Austin Peay State University; an adjunct law instructor/advisor at Miller Motte Business College; an equal employment officer and managing attorney at Legal Services/Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands; and as a staff attorney for Stone, Richardson, Grier, and Allen, PC.

Mock served, with distinction, on the Tennessee Advisory Commission on the Rules of Practice and Procedure and as a hearing panelist for the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility.

She is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the American Trial Lawyers Association, the State Bar of Tennessee, the Tennessee Bar Association, the Montgomery County Bar Association and the Tennessee Lawyer’s Association of Women.

Mock received an undergraduate degree in socio-economics from Michigan State University’s James Madison Honors College, an American Bar Association paralegal certification from Roosevelt University, and a juris doctor from the University of Tennessee.

Cooley Law School is the largest law school in the nation.  Founded in 1972, it operates J.D. programs across Michigan in Lansing, Auburn Hills, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor.  Today, Cooley Law School has nearly 14,000 graduates across the nation and worldwide and also offers joint degree and master of laws programs.  Cooley offers enrollment three times a year; in January, May and September.   Additional information about Cooley can be found at cooley.edu.