Experienced Practitioners Join Tulane Law Clinics

Tulane Law School is strengthening its flagship clinical education program with three faculty appointments that bring extensive experience in environmental enforcement, advocacy for survivors of gender-based violence and criminal defense to the classroom and the practice of law.

Francesca Buzzi, Tasia Kastanek, and Jessica Wood have joined Tulane’s full-time clinical faculty, and will teach and supervise students representing real clients in matters with significant consequences for individuals and communities.

The appointments continue Tulane Law’s longstanding excellence in and commitment to clinical education, a cornerstone of the school’s experiential learning program. Tulane’s clinics place students under the direct supervision of full-time faculty practitioners. This supervision allows students, under the Louisiana’s student-practice rules, to represent clients before state and federal courts, administrative agencies and other government bodies.

"These new professors bring extraordinary experience, deep commitment to their clients and communities, and the kind of mentorship that will prepare our students to enter the profession with confidence, skill and purpose," said law Dean Marcilynn Burke. 

The newest faculty members add depth to the clinical program in several areas of practice. 

Francesca Buzzi joins the Women’s Prison Project as a clinical assistant professor, bringing significant criminal defense experience to a program that represents incarcerated survivors of intimate partner violence, trafficking and abuse.

Before joining Tulane, Buzzi was an attorney with Orleans Public Defenders, representing people accused of crimes in New Orleans. Her work included trial and appellate litigation in Louisiana courts.

In the Women’s Prison Project, Buzzi will help supervise students representing clients whose experiences of abuse intersect with the criminal legal system. The project, a joint effort between the Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence clinics,  provides students opportunities to work on complex cases involving survivors charged with or convicted of crimes connected to abuse they experienced.

The work is part of the clinics’ broader approach to legal education, which asks students to consider not only the immediate legal issues facing a client but also the ways domestic violence can intersect with incarceration, housing, economic insecurity, family law and other legal and social systems.

Buzzi received her Bachelor of Arts at Wesleyan University and her J.D. from the University of California Berkeley School of Law.

Tasia Kastanek (L’21) joins the Environmental Law Clinic at Tulane as a clinical assistant professor of law, returning to the clinic where she gained experience as a student.

Kastanek comes to Tulane from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 Office of Regional Counsel in Chicago, where she served as an associate regional counsel. Her work included federal environmental enforcement matters involving regulated industries and federal environmental statutes.

Her return to Tulane brings her clinical experience full circle. As a law student, Kastanek worked in the Environmental Law Clinic on litigation challenging permits for major industrial facilities in Louisiana. That work included an appellate challenge involving the proposed Formosa chemical complex in St. James Parish.

Kastanek received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado. She is a two-time alumna of Tulane University, receiving a Master of Arts and later, a J.D., graduating in 2021 with academic honors in the Order of the Coif and receiving the Haber Joseph McCarthy Environmental Law Award. Her background as both a former Tulane clinic student and federal environmental lawyer offers her students a common perspective as they learn to work in environmental advocacy.

Jessica Wood (L’14) joins the faculty of the Tulane Domestic Violence Clinic as a clinical assistant professor of law after serving as a visiting clinical professor during the 2025-26 academic year. 

Wood has spent more than a decade representing and advocating for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse and neglect. Before coming to Tulane, she served as managing attorney of the Domestic Violence Unit at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, where she supervised attorneys and staff across multiple offices and jurisdictions.

At SLLS, Wood also trained and mentored attorneys and law students in litigation and trauma-informed advocacy and participated in coalitions and task forces working to improve services for survivors.

At Tulane, she works with students in a clinic that combines intensive litigation training with a human rights-based approach to gender violence. Students represent survivors in trial and appellate courts and develop skills ranging from trauma-informed interviewing and client counseling to discovery, motion practice and courtroom advocacy.

Wood earned her J.D. from Tulane Law and a Bachelor’s Degree from Texas A&M University.