Engel will come to Suffolk Law from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University, where she is the Leon M. and Gloria Plevin Associate Professor of Law.

She has published extensively on the law and economics of predatory lending, mortgage discrimination, financial services reform, and the subprime and foreclosure crises.

“Kathleen Engel’s trailblazing scholarship identified the subprime crisis and promising avenues for reform long before it became a regrettable reality in the United States,” said Suffolk Law School Professor Joseph Franco, who teaches Securities Regulation and related courses. “We are excited about welcoming her as a colleague and know that her ideas will continue to influence public discourse in this area. She will inspire students by demonstrating a genuine connection between the world of ideas and legal reform.”

Engel has been a vigorous advocate for a number of consumer-oriented reforms pertaining to abusive lending practices associated with residential mortgages.

She served on President Barack Obama’s Housing Policy Committee during his presidential campaign. She is a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ Consumer Advisory Council; was an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Academic Advisory Council on Subprime Lending; and is a member of the Americans for Fairness in Lending board of directors.

Her award-winning research and analyses of financial services markets and the laws that regulate them have been cited in Business Week, The Economist, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. She is working with Professor Patricia McCoy of the University of Connecticut School of Law to complete the book, The Subprime Virus, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

Engel teaches courses in torts, employment law, employment discrimination, civil procedure and consumer credit.

She is an honors graduate from Smith College and the University of Texas School of Law. Following graduation from law school, she clerked for Judge Homer Thornberry of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas. She then practiced law at Burnham & Hines in Boston, where she primarily represented plaintiffs in civil rights and housing and employment discrimination cases. I am excited to join the Suffolk Law School community and to participate in the school's innovative programs, like the concentration in Business Law and Financial Services,” Engel said. “I also look forward to meeting my new students and exchanging ideas with the outstanding faculty who will be my colleagues at the Law School.

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Suffolk University Law School, in the heart of Boston, enrolls more than 1,600 students in its day and evening divisions. Its curriculum includes specialty concentrations, joint-degree programs and an LL.M. in global technology. A wide range of clinical programs, internships and moot court competitions provide students with practical skills. Suffolk University, comprised of the Law School, College of Arts and Sciences and Sawyer Business School, celebrated its Centennial in 2006.