Professor of Law
Rm 335, Law School Building
Email: dempsey@law.villanova.edu
Phone: 610-519-8011
Michelle Dempsey has been working to combat commercial sexual exploitation since the late 1990s, when she served as a lobbyist in Vienna during the United Nations negotiations and drafting of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. She has worked on behalf of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and has served as a consultant to the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons.
Michelle has published widely on the subject of sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, including articles in the American Criminal Law Review (Georgetown), University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Criminal Law Review, Criminal Law & Philosophy, Emory International Law Review, and she is working on a forthcoming article for the Journal of Human Trafficking. Michelle received her D. Phil. (Ph.D.) from the University of Oxford, her LL.M. from the London School of Economics, and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.
Prior to joining Villanova Law, she was a Tutor and Lecturer in Law at University of Oxford, England, served as an expert consultant on violence against women to the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales, and conducted empirical research on sex trafficking under a grant awarded to the University of Oxford Centre for Criminology. She currently serves as a Professor of Law at Villanova Charles Widger School of Law.