Paula Franzese

Early career

Franzese graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Barnard College. She became a member of the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School, and won several academic prizes, including the Rosenman prize for excellence in public law courses. “She worked as a litigator with Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York City, where she worked with First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and served as a member of the New York City Housing Court reform project. She clerked for New Jersey Supreme Court justice Alan B. Handler. She became a professor of law at Seton Hall Law School in 1986, where she is the Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law.

Scholarship

Franzese is acknowledged as an authority on two aspects of law: government ethics and property law. Her scholarship focuses on these two main areas. Her research into property law includes landlord-tenant reform, common interest communities including homeowners boards, affordable housing, including a legal analysis of the Mount Laurel doctrine. She published in legal journals and books including America’s Second Gilded Age? Perspectives on Law and Class Differences, NYU Press (Paul Carrington & Trina Jones, eds.), The Affective Assistance of Counsel: Practicing Law as a Healing Profession, Carolina Academic Press (Marjorie Silver, ed.), and Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching: Property, Aspen Publishing. In addition to her scholarship, Franzese wrote two general-purpose guidebooks for students, including A Short & Happy Guide To Being A College Student and A Short & Happy Guide To Being A Law Student.

Law school educator

Franzese taught law at different types of schools, most notably at Seton Hall Law School. She also lectured for ten years at BarBri, a bar-exam preparation firm, serving as its national lecturer on property law. She taught a course to middle schoolers at the St. Catherine of Siena School entitled Civics, Character and Leadership. She has moderated panels discussing such issues as microaggression. In legal education, she advocated that law professors emphasize a "conceptual, contextual and empathetic understanding". Her philosophy of education is optimistic, and she encourages law students to have empathy with others as a way of better understanding the law and becoming more effective lawyers. She said:

Can we make real the promise of renewed optimism? I answer with a resounding yes. No matter how seemingly humble or modest our circumstances, we each have the capacity to do the work of the angels on earth and to close the gap between what is and what ought to be. Cynicism, wrote Phillip Van Munching, is a belief in nothing.

Particularly when there is so much to do, and it sometimes feels that we push that boulder up the mountain only to have it tumble down again, I remain mindful of Camus' choice to interpret the myth of Sisyphus through a lens of hope. Camus writes that while some might see only futility in the task at hand, he chooses instead to see the nobility of the very effort. He notes, "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Prof. Franzese has shared wisdom with Columbia University students, has written about the promise of the law as an instrument for social justice in the New Jersey Law Journal, has received national renown for her groundbreaking scholarship on the struggles of indigent tenants and has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 2017 Justice Marie Garibaldi Award for Distinguished Service and Excellence. Her research and recommendations have been used by legislatures to formulate key ethics reform legislation and legislation to help level the playing field between landlords and tenants.

Franzese won Seton Hall Law School's teaching award at least ten times. She was named one of the best law teachers in the United States and featured in the book by Harvard University Press entitled What the Best Law Teachers Do. Legal educator Richard C. Reuben described Franzese as having "warmth, kindness and a genuine sense of interest" in people.

Ethics and reform advocacy

Franzese is an advocate of ethics reform. She served with three governors of New Jersey on ethics-related commissions, including for governors Richard Codey and Jon Corzine. Her ethics reform work led to the promulgation of major legislative reform, including promulgation of the Uniform Ethics Code.

In 2014 and later in 2016, she criticized the administration of New Jersey governor Christie in that officials conflated their official duties with campaign efforts.

The public trust is betrayed by the perception that official power would be wielded as a sort of quid pro quo in the attempt to secure support for the governor's reelection bid.

Bridgegate represents another shameful chapter in New Jersey's beleaguered story of governmental corruption.

In 2011, Franzese received the COGEL Award, the National Council on Government Ethics Law's highest honor.

In 2007, Franzese argued that the profession should work harder towards defining itself positively.

Personal life

Franzese has two children.

Publications