Daniel M. Schaffzin
Daniel M. Schaffzin
Daniel M. Schaffzin joins the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law in August 2025 as the Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and a Teaching Professor. Professor Schaffzin comes to Winston Law after 16 years on the faculty of the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. From 2011 to 2025, he served as Memphis Law’s Director of Experiential Learning and taught a course package that regularly included Civil Procedure I and II, the Externship Course, the Neighborhood Preservation Clinic, and Trial Advocacy. During that time, he also received the Professor of the Year Award, the Farris Bobango Faculty Scholarship Award, and the MLK50 Faculty Service Award.
Professor Schaffzin has been a leader in the national clinical teaching community for many years, serving as both the President of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA)—the largest association of law professors in the country—and on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) Clinical Section. Since launching Memphis Law’s Neighborhood Preservation Clinic in 2015, Professor Schaffzin’s advocacy and scholarship have focused on collaborative approaches for reclaiming public nuisance properties. Together with his Clinic students, Professor Schaffzin litigated more than 2000 lawsuits seeking abatement of badly neglected vacant and abandoned properties. He has also trained more than 30 cities as faculty for the Strategic Code Enforcement Management Academy, which he helped to found in 2017. Professor Schaffzin’s articles on clinical pedagogy and strategic code enforcement have appeared in the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, the Clinical Law Review, the Elon Law Review, the ABA Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development, and other journals. He was also one of many authors of the book Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World.
Professor Schaffzin began coaching competitive mock trial teams more than 20 years ago. Before entering the academy, he helped lead Franklin Learning Center to a Philadelphia high school mock trial championship and qualification for the Pennsylvania state mock trial tournament. Subsequently, his teams at University of Memphis School of Law and the University of North Dakota School of Law combined to win three regional championships and advance to the national finals of the prestigious National Trial Competition.
Professor Schaffzin earned his Bachelor of Arts degree (magna cum laude) from Temple University and his J.D. (cum laude) from Temple University School of Law. Following law school, began his legal career as a Health Effects Litigation Group associate at Pepper Hamilton LLP in Philadelphia before joining GlaxoSmithKline as Counsel in the pharmaceutical company’s U.S. Legal Operations group. From 2007 to 2009, Professor Schaffzin taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the University of North Dakota School of Law, where he instructed the school’s Housing and Employment Litigation Clinic.
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