January 24, 2022

The University of Montana Blewett School of Law is pleased to announce the addition of two new law faculty to the Montana law community. Anna Conley and Kristen Stanley will join the faculty in fall 2022 as assistant professors of law. 

“We are delighted to welcome these two outstanding and accomplished teachers, scholars and practitioners to our faculty,” said Cathay Smith, acting dean of academic affairs and professor of law.

“They will enrich our community with their significant professional experiences and innovative teaching and scholarship,” added Monte Mills, acting dean of student success and professor and co-director of the Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic.

Anna Conley

Professor Conley is currently the Chief Civil Deputy in the Missoula County Attorney’s Office.  In that capacity she oversees the in-house civil defense group and supervises the civil commitment and dependent neglect units at the county attorney’s office.  She has taught comparative law, international law and constitutional law as an adjunct professor at the University of Montana.  

Prior to joining the county attorney's office, Conley was in private practice and was a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana. Her areas of expertise include complex civil litigation, comparative law and international law, with an emphasis on human rights.  

Conley has a J.D. from the George Washington Law School and an LL.M. and Doctor of Civil Laws (D.C.L) from the McGill University Faculty of Law. She has litigated many large-scale complex cases, participated in several rule of law initiatives and published extensively in comparative civil procedure, international law and comparative law. She will teach courses in civil litigation at the Blewett School of Law.  

Kristen Stanley

Professor Stanley comes to the University of Montana from Cornell Law School, where she teaches Lawyering to first-year J.D. students.  Prior to Cornell she taught legal writing and analysis at Vanderbilt Law School.

For most of her career, Stanley represented death-sentenced individuals in their federal habeas corpus and state post-conviction proceedings. As an assistant federal public defender in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Middle District of Tennessee, Stanley represented men under sentence of death in their federal habeas proceedings in Federal District Court, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court and Tennessee state court proceedings. Stanley also practiced in Louisiana, where she represented indigent men sentenced to death in state post-conviction proceedings.  

Stanley has a J.D. from Cornell Law School and a Master of Science in Social Work (M.S.S.W.) from the University of Tennessee. She specializes in understanding the effects and effective treatment of trauma. Her focus is on the ways in which exposure to traumatic experiences impact neurobiology, human development, brain functioning and interpersonal relationships, particularly in the context of the criminal judicial system. She is also interested in the social, cultural and political forces that shape exposure to, and recovery from, traumatic experiences.  She will teach courses in legal writing and analysis at the Blewett School of Law.