Radcliffe College/Harvard University, AB 1969
Yale University, JD 1973
Office: 120 Knowles Center
Mail: 400 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
Tel: (617) 373-3307
Fax: (617) 373-8793
E-mail: e.spieler@neu.edu
Emily A. Spieler
Appointed to lead the School of Law in 2002, Dean Spieler is a leading authority on employment law and social insurance systems. Prior to joining the Northeastern community, she served as the Hale J. and Roscoe P. Posten Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law. Dean Spieler joined the academic community in 1990, after holding a variety of senior positions in the public sector, including service as commissioner of West Virginia’s Workers’ Compensation Fund, as the state’s first deputy attorney general for civil rights, and as a member of the state Human Rights Commission.
In the 1970s, Dean Spieler practiced law in Boston, specializing in the legal problems of women workers. She was an early member of the Women’s Law Collective, a feminist legal practice based in Cambridge, and also served as special assistant attorney general for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Lead Poisoning Prevention Division. Dean Spieler has received a wide variety of honors and awards, including a 2001 Fulbright award that allowed her to spend a semester at University College in Cork, Ireland, and the West Virginia Martin Luther King Jr. Advocacy of Justice Award. She has served as a member of committees of the National Academies of Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, the US Department of Energy and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of employment law and social insurance programs.
- “Legal Remedies and Social Benefits for Occupationally and Environmentally Injured Workers” (with Boden and Leifer), Occupational Health: Recognizing and Preventing Work-Related Disease and Injury, 5th ed. Levy and Wegman, eds. Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 2006.
- “The Americans with Disabilities Act and Family Medical Leave Act,” Occupational Safety and Health Law. Rabinowitz, ed. American Bar Association treatise published by Bureau of National Affairs, 2002.
- “Workers’ Compensation and Older Workers” (with Burton), Health and Income Security for An Aging Workforce, No.3, National Academy of Social Insurance, April 2001.
- “On the Road: Images of Truthtelling in Rural America,” 6 Michigan Journal of Gender & Law 377, 2000.
- “Assessing Fairness in Workers’ Compensation Reform: A Commentary on the 1995 West Virginia Workers’ Compensation Legislation,” 98 West Virginia Law Review 23, 1995.
- “Social Welfare Policy in the Context of Economic Restructuring,” 30 Urban Studies 351, 1993.
- “Can Coal Miners Escape Black Lung? An Analysis of the Coal Miner Job Transfer Program and Its Implications for Occupational Medical Removal Protection Programs,” 91 West Virginia Law Review 775, 1989.
- “Is the US Chest X-Ray Surveillance Program Succeeding in Controlling Lung Disease?” (with Wagner), Proceedings of the VII International Conference on Pneumoconioses, 1988.
