Professor
MGhetti@sulc.edu
(225) 771-4900 ext. 210


Subjects taught: Criminal Procedure; Evidence; Legal Ethics; Trial Advocacy; Domestic Violence

Professor Ghetti has focused her career in academia in four main areas: Criminal Practice, Legal Ethics, Domestic Violence and freedom of religion issues. Her goals are to spread information and affect change. Towards those goals, in addition to teaching and writing, she serves on numerous policy making committees and task forces, is a frequent speaker at local, national and international conferences, is frequently interviewed by the media, and has written and testified on behalf of or against numerous pieces of legislation.

In the areas of Criminal Practice & Evidence, Professor Ghetti served on the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board for 6 years resigning to take her place on the Louisiana Legislative Task Force to Study Indigent Defense, on which she currently serves. She has served on the Youth Advocacy Task Force and chaired a Juvenile Justice Symposium, both advocating change in the state's juvenile delinquency laws and procedures. She also serves on numerous committees formed by the Governor's office, Supreme Court, and various bar associations and is a long-time member of the Louisiana Law Institute Committees on Criminal Law and Evidence having helped draft parts of the Louisiana Code of Evidence. Professor Ghetti has taught constitutional criminal procedure to law enforcement related agencies in Poland, Turkey, and the former country of Czechoslovakia. She has co-authored and edits the Louisiana Benchbook on Capital Trials, used by district court judges throughout the state, as well as written other articles on Fourth Amendment, habeas corpus and evidence issues. She is currently working on a series of articles on indigent defense. Professor Ghetti is the current co-advisor to the Moot Court Board and the SULC Trial Lawyer Association.

In the area of Legal Ethics, Professor Ghetti was recently named a fellow with the National Institute For Teaching Ethics and Professionalism and is a fellow of the Louisiana Bar Foundation, having served as its Scholar in Residence from 1997 to 1999. She is an active member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and is the former president of the Dean Henry George McMahon American Inns of Court in which she is currently a master chair. Professor Ghetti is the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Louisiana Supreme Court's Committee on Bar Admissions and serves on the Testing Committee, which is studying a rewrite of the state bar exam. She also serves on the state bar's Committee on Professionalism and Quality of Life and chaired a subcommittee of the Supreme Court's Conclave on Legal Education having edited the published report of the Conclave. She has just finished an article on the use of runners and permanent disbarment which is awaiting publication.

As a survivor of domestic violence, Professor Ghetti is always available to speak on both legal and personal issues surrounding this serious societal issue. She has spoken to judicial, legal and law enforcement organizations as well as to local civic and religious groups and has appeared on television and radio. Her experiences with domestic violence can be read about in the book No Daddy, Don't written by Irene Pence.
 

Professor Ghetti is an avid advocate for freedom to practice one's religion. She is an active ally of the Alliance Defense Fund and a former board member of the Rutherford Foundation. She helped write, produced and appeared in a local cable special on the Equal Access Act. She is also the co-advisor to the Christians at Law organization at SULC.

Professor Ghetti graduated second in her class from Louisiana State University Law School in 1983, although she matriculated her senior year at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and has been named to the LSU Law School Hall of Fame. She practiced tax and bankruptcy litigation with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld in Dallas for 4 ½ years before returning to Louisiana to enter into a commercial litigation practice. She joined the SULC faculty in 1991. Professor Ghetti is an active member of the Republican National Lawyers Association and is the advisor to College Republicans on the SUBR campus.