Professor of Law

Camille Nelson’s passion is to explore and expose under-theorized areas of the law. “I conceptualize my scholarship as legal excavation, especially as it pertains to marginalized communities, be they racial, sexual, gendered or physically or mentally disabled.” Nelson says the law may be conceived of as neutral, but it doesn’t operate that way, “it has disparate impact depending upon where you’re situated in society. I want to make those invisibilities transparent. If we can’t do that, often we can’t have a healthy discussion about the law.”

A dedicated teacher and scholar, Professor Nelson earned her LL.B from the University of Ottawa, magna cum laude, and her LL.M from Columbia University. She was the head law clerk for the Honorable Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. Before entering the academy as an Associate in Law at Columbia University School of Law she was in private practice as a litigator at McCarthy Tétrault, the largest law firm in Canada. She joined the faculty of Saint Louis University School of Law in 2000 and is a member of both the Center for Health Law Studies and the Center for International and Comparative Law.

Nelson’s teaching and research interests include contracts, critical race theory, legal profession, criminal law and procedure, mental health law and disability law. Her work has appeared in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Wisconsin Law Review, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, Michigan Journal of Race and Law, the Mississippi Law Journal, The Journal of Law and Policy and the Florida Law Review. She co-edited Racism Eh? A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada with her sister Dr. Charmaine Nelson of McGill University.

A frequent guest speaker and lecturer, Professor Nelson has been invited to present in Australia, Jamaica, France, England, Puerto Rico, Spain, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and throughout the United States. She has been a distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Université de Paris-Dauphine and the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She has served as a visiting professor at Seattle University School of Law and the University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law.

Professor Nelson has received numerous honors for her teaching and is a Board Member of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT), LatCrit Inc. and a member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health. For fun, Professor Nelson enjoys cooking, wine tasting, kickboxing, pottery and glassblowing.