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University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Vice Dean and Professor Deborah Thompson Eisenberg has been elected to the American Law Institute (ALI).
Membership in ALI is an exceptional professional honor. Formed in 1923, the prominent institute is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law. Eisenberg joins 23 other full-time and emeritus Maryland Carey Law faculty who are current members of ALI and who make up 75% of ALI members from Maryland law schools.
ALI membership consists of eminent judges, lawyers, and law professors from all areas of the United States and from many other countries, selected for professional achievement and demonstrated interest in improving the law.
Joining the Maryland Carey Law faculty in 2011, Eisenberg is Maryland Carey Law’s vice dean and Piper & Marbury Professor of Law. She also serves as faculty director of Maryland Carey Law’s Dispute Resolution Program and Center for Dispute Resolution (C-DRUM). Eisenberg teaches in the areas of dispute resolution, mediation, and civil procedure. She received her JD from Yale Law School and graduated as valedictorian with a BA in Political Science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Eisenberg is a leading scholar in the areas of dispute resolution, employment law, and equal pay.
“Vice Dean Eisenberg is the author of more than 20 law review articles and book chapters on subjects ranging from employment law to mediation to how AI affects law schools,” said Professor Leigh Goodmark, associate dean for research and faculty development. “Her work is creative, visionary, meticulously researched, cogently argued, and has real-world application.”
Eisenberg’s expertise has earned her leadership positions in the American Association of Law Schools Dispute Resolution and Clinical Law sections. She has published peer-reviewed articles relating to the costs and benefits of court-annexed ADR and the impact of various mediator interventions (with Lorig Charkoudian and Jamie Walter) and explored attorney attitudes toward online mediation in employment matters (with Donna Shestowsky and Robert Niccolini).
Her scholarship has examined the application of conflict process strategies to address complex social issues, including the use of restorative justice to prevent and respond to employment discrimination, the use of mediation to prevent evictions, and the impact of conflict de-escalation training for frontline civil servants to reduce violence and build public trust in democratic institutions.
Eisenberg’s equal pay scholarship has been recognized in many national media outlets. She has testified as a pay discrimination expert before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
As Maryland Carey Law’s vice dean, Eisenberg stands in for the dean as needed and is involved in every facet of the law school’s operations. She leads Academic Affairs, which develops and manages the curriculum, hires adjunct faculty, provides academic advising, and takes overall responsibility for meeting accreditation requirements. Moreover, she has been a key facilitator in the law school’s transition to the NextGen Bar exam in 2026, for which Maryland Carey Law grads achieved a 91% pass rate, a jump of 8 percentage points from 2025.
Faculty director of Maryland Carey Law’s Dispute Resolution Program and its Center for Dispute Resolution (C-DRUM) since 2011, Eisenberg has led the academic program to a peer ranking of 7th in the nation among law schools by U.S. News and World Report. She has overseen the expansion of dispute resolution courses and developed a Dispute Resolution Track. Maryland Carey Law’s dispute resolution curriculum is unique in providing students with opportunities for community-engaged practice and learning, including a Mediation Clinic, the Ronna Jablow Fellowship with Community Mediation Maryland, and the Erin Levitas Initiative to Prevent Sexual Harm.
In this video, Eisenberg discusses the Ronna K. Jablow Mediation Fellowship offered through C-DRUM, which provides annual fellowship support for Maryland Carey Law students as they provide community mediation services in Maryland.