From prosecutor to provost, Temple's JoAnne Epps leaves a mark in law
For Temple University Provost JoAnne A. Epps, the essence of Temple Law School is as a place where young lawyers are trained, nurtured, and inspired. It is a vision shaped by almost 30 years of teaching law at Temple, and rooted in her service before that as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia and Deputy City Attorney in Los Angeles.
For Temple University Provost JoAnne A. Epps, the essence of Temple Law School is as a place where young lawyers are trained, nurtured, and inspired. It is a vision shaped by almost 30 years of teaching law at Temple, and rooted in her service before that as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia and Deputy City Attorney in Los Angeles.
As Temple Law School Dean, a post she held from July 2008 until becoming Provost in July 2016, Epps was an outspoken advocate for legal education that emphasized responsiveness over a one-size-fits-all curricular model. National Jurist Magazine named her among the 25 most influential people in legal education for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, citing her leadership in implementing this approach at Temple. Her commitment to curricular innovation and experiential legal education also inspired the creation of the Stephen and Sandra Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple Law School
She has been awarded a 2015 Spirit of Excellence Award by the American Bar Association, the 2015 M. Ashley Dickerson Award by the National Association of Women Lawyers, and the 2014 Justice Sonia Sotomayor Diversity Award by the Philadelphia Bar Association. In March 2015, she was appointed by Mayor Nutter to chair a Police Oversight Board formed in response to a recent Justice Department report about Philadelphia police shootings. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Defender Association of Philadelphia since 1991, and from 1999 to 2006 served as Board President. She has been a member of the Board of Directors for the Committee of Seventy since 2010. In 2012, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett named Epps a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania for her contributions.
Provost Epps each fall teaches Litigation Basics to the first year students. Her teaching areas include Criminal Procedure, Evidence and Trial Advocacy. She has taught advocacy skills to prosecutors at the United Nation's ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) in Arusha, Tanzania. Provost Epps has taught courses in Beijing, China to Chinese lawyers enrolled in Temple's LL.M. program and to lawyers from the Beijing Supreme People's Procuratorate (the Chinese Prosecutor's Office).
A native of Cheltenham, PA, Provost Epps received her B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1973 and is a 1976 graduate of Yale Law School. She lives with her husband in New Jersey.