Ramzi Nasser died September 10, 2006, after a battle with cancer. He was 31.

He came to the School of Law in 2004 as an assistant professor of law and helped establish a criminal law clinical course. “Professor Nasser loved being a law professor,” Dean Lisa Kloppenberg says. “He was extremely dedicated to the poor, particularly those needing representation in the criminal justice system.”

Before he came to UDSL, Professor Nasser was a trial and appeals attorney for the Federal Defenders of San Diego, where he represented low-income people in federal court from arraignment to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also a federal court law clerk for two years for the Honorable James T. Giles, Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“Professor Nasser talked about his courses and his students with a passion I have not seen in others,” says Professor Fran Conte, a close friend of Professor Nasser’s who, with Dean Kloppenberg, attended Professor Nasser’s funeral service in California. “He was a remarkable person.”

Professor Nasser graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1999. As a law student he was the treasurer of the Equal Justice Foundation and served as an advocate for the Guild Food Stamp Clinic and Unemployment Compensation Project in Philadelphia. For nearly three years as an advocate, he represented indigent clients before the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare and Unemployment Compensation Board.

A scholarship fund has been established in his memory. The Professor Ramzi Nasser Scholarship Fund is intended to perpetuate the memory and many life-affirming qualities of Professor Nasser, and to support students who share his commitment to justice, morality, and serving the underrepresented and poor in court.