Faculty

Frederick D. Royal, Professor of Law 

Associate Dean for LL.M. Programs in Estate Planning and Elder Law and Closely-held Businesses

B.A., University of Massachusetts
J.D., Cornell University School of Law
LL.M., Boston University School of Law

Frederick Royal is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean of the graduate programs in Estate Planning and Elder Law and Closely-held Businesses. Professor Royal has also served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the School of Law. Professor Royal was a Law Clerk to United States Tax Court Judge William M. Drennen for two years. Before joining the faculty in 1978, he specialized in the practice of tax law and estate planning. He has published in the areas of tax procedure, corporate taxation, and estate planning. His most recent publication is Chapter 22, “Representing a Trustee” in Understanding and Using Trusts, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, 2005. He is a frequent lecturer for continuing legal education programs, including Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education and the Massachusetts Bar Association. Professor Royal teaches in the areas of Corporate Taxation, Income Taxation of Pass-Through Entities, Federal Wealth Transfer Taxes, Estate Planning, and Business and Estate Planning for Owners of Closely-held Business Entities.

William G. Baker, Professor of Law 

B.A., Clarkson College
J.D., Union College, Albany Law School

Professor Baker, a member of the faculty since 1975, is a former Law Clerk to New York State Supreme Court Judge Andrew V. Siracuse. He has been a consultant to the Rochester, NY, law firms of Kaufman, Kenning, Tyle and D’Amanda and Pauley & Barney. He is a frequent program participant, speaking in the areas of estate planning and real estate transactions. He has written numerous articles on estate planning. Presently, he serves as an associate editor to the American Bar Association Probate and Real Property Journal. His pro bono work often consists of assisting not-for-profit corporations. Professor Baker teaches in the areas of Trusts and Estates, Estate Planning, Federal Wealth Transfer Taxes, and Planning for Charitable Transfers.

Eric J. Gouvin, Professor of Law

B.A., Cornell University
J.D., LL.M., Boston University
M.P.A., Harvard University

Professor Gouvin practiced corporate, commercial, and banking law with a large firm in Portland, Maine. He worked on matters for business clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small, closely-held concerns. He has been very involved in transactional law education and the promotion of entrepreneurship, having founded the Small Business Clinic at Western New England, serving on the Board of Editors for the Kauffman Foundation’s eLaw website, and being a member of the Board of Advisors for the Scibelli Enterprise Center and for the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Initiative. His areas of scholarly interest include corporate, banking and entrepreneurship law, often with an international or comparative perspective. He is a coauthor of the treatise Blumberg on Corporate Groups and numerous law review articles on a wide variety of topics. He has also written several lessons on corporate law for the Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) library. Professor Gouvin is an active member of the American Bar Association, where he chairs the Adjunct Faculty Committee for the Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar and has previously co-chaired the Business Law Education Committee for the Business Law Section. In addition to his service at Western New England, Professor Gouvin has also taught a course in comparative corporate law several times as a Visiting Professor at the Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense and at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania.  In the spring of 2012 he will deliver a series of lectures in China at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law as a Fulbright Specialist.

William D. Metzger, Professor of Law

B.S., College of the Holy Cross
J.D., Boston College Law School
LL.M., Georgetown University Law Center

After graduating summa cum laude from law school, Professor Metzger, whose advanced degree is in taxation, served four years in the Chief Counsel’s Office, Legislation and Regulations Division of the Internal Revenue Service where he became Assistant Branch Chief. A member of the full-time faculty since 1976, he served as Associate Dean for Admissions from 2000-2003. His areas of interest are federal income taxation and estate and gift taxation.

René Reich-Graefe, Professor of Law

LL.B., Free University of Berlin School of Law
LL.M., University of Connecticut School of Law

Professor Reich-Graefe first came to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship when he earned his master’s degree at the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1997. He has served as a Law Clerk at the Berlin Court of Appeals in Germany, his native country, and has been in private practice as a corporate and financial lawyer at the former international law firm of Coudert Brothers LLP for seven years, both in Berlin, Germany (1997 to 2000) and in New York City (2000 to 2004). Prior to joining our faculty, Professor Reich-Graefe was a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law from 2004 to 2006 where he taught Business Organizations, International Corporate Responsibility, and an introductory course in American law for international master students. He is admitted to practice in New York and Germany and is frequently involved in pro bono work for not-for-profit organizations.

Robert Statchen, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law

B.A., Clark University,
M.B.A., University of Connecticut,
J.D., Chicago-Kent College of Law,
LL.M., Boston University School of Law

As a joint appointee to the School of Law and the College of Business, Professor Statchen teaches and advises J.D. and M.B.A. students in the Small Business Clinic of the Law and Business Center for Advancing Entrepreneurship. Before he began teaching, he practiced corporate and transactional law for profit and nonprofit entities with the law firm of Tobin, Carberry, O'Malley, Riley & Selinger, PC in New London, CT. Prior to that, he was a Civil Litigator in Stamford, CT, with the law firm of Ryan, Ryan, Johnson & Deluca, LLP. Professor Statchen began his legal career in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps and continues to serve in the Connecticut Air National Guard. During his military career he served in Operation Southern Watch in Saudi Arabia and Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was elected to the House of Delegates of the Connecticut Bar Association from 2002 to 2005.