TALLAHASSEE—Florida State University College of Law Professor Mary Crossley will head to Pennsylvania in July to take over as dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She will be the first woman to hold the position since the school was founded in 1895. 

Crossley arrived at Florida State College of Law in 2000 as a visiting professor and joined the faculty as The Florida Bar Health Law Section Professor in 2001. She has been courtesy professor at the FSU College of Medicine since 2002. 

“Mary is an excellent scholar and a charismatic classroom teacher, and I’m sure she’ll do a superb job as dean,” said Dean Don Weidner. “Her departure is a great loss for the law school, but her new appointment reflects the fact that our faculty are very much in demand nationally.” 

Crossley is widely recognized for her scholarship in disability and health law and teaches Health Law and Policy, Family Law, Torts, and a seminar on Health Care & Civil Rights. 

Before coming to Florida State, she was a professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law, where she also served as associate academic dean. She was a law clerk for the Honorable Harry W. Wellford of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced health care and corporate law in San Francisco and Connecticut. 

Crossley received a bachelor’s degree in history from University of Virginia in 1984 and her J.D. in 1987 from Vanderbilt Law School, where she served as editor-inchief of the Vanderbilt Law Review and was a member of the Order of the Coif. 

“While I am excited about the opportunity to play a leadership role at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, I am sad to be leaving FSU. It has been a pleasure and an honor to be part of this vibrant community of learning, and I will miss my colleagues, my students, and the staff who make it all possible.”