LIBRARY STAFF
John Cannan
Faculty Scholarship Librarian and Legal Research Instructor
Room 161
(610) 519-6258
Email
John Cannan serves as the faculty scholarship librarian. He received his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law and practiced historic preservation and land use law in Baltimore. After obtaining his MLS from the University of Maryland College of Library and Information Science, he was assistant law librarian at the Montgomery County (MD) Circuit Court Law Library and a legal information analyst at the Law Library of Congress.Ìý
Before coming to Â鶹Èë¿Ú, Cannan was a reference and instructional services librarian at the Drexel University Kline School of Law, where he developed and taught courses on intellectual property legal research and health law legal research. He is a frequent writer on legislative history as well as other legal and legal research topics. His article, A Legislative History of the Affordable Care Act: How Legislative Procedure Shapes Legislative History, 105 L. Libr. J. 131, 163 (2013), was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court inÌýKing v. Burwell, 135 S. Ct. 2480, 2492, 192 L. Ed. 2d 483 (2015). His full profile is available in the faculty directory.
Ashley Choi
Law Library Administrative Coordinator
Room 150
(610) 519-7022
Email
Ashley Choi administers several aspects of daily law library operations. She primarily performs acquisition services for the library, arranges events on behalf of the library, and assists with managing the archives while serving regular shifts at the circulation desk. Please reach out to Ashley if you need to schedule a meeting in the law library conference room or make arrangements for WildCard access to the building.
In addition to her work in the library, Choi coordinates the Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law Review and Moot Court summer competitions.
Before coming to Â鶹Èë¿Ú, Choi worked for the University of Pittsburgh's Frick Fine Arts Gallery where she assisted in object preservation and curation. She has a BA in anthropology and a minor in museum studies from the University of Pittsburgh.
Lori Corso
Head of Staff Development & Legal Research Instructor
Room 159
(610) 519-7033
Email
Lori Corso currently serves as the head of staff development for the library, providing training to support library projects and identifying professional development opportunities for the librarians and library staff. She also manages our law databases, helps to maintain the law library’s website, creates and manages the library's research guides and develops additional tutorials for faculty and student use.
Corso teaches the Advanced Legal Research and Corporate and Transactional Legal Research elective courses and guest lectures on research in seminar paper and other courses as well as the law school clinics.
Corso joined the Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law Library in 2010 after working as the firm librarian for a large law firm based in Los Angeles. She holds a JD from Northeastern University School of Law and a master's in library and information science from San Jose State University. She graduated summa cum laude from Shippensburg University with a BA in psychology and a BS in criminal justice, law enforcement. Her full profile is available in the faculty directory.
Amy Emerson
Assistant Dean for Library and Information Services & Professor of Law
Room 151
(610) 519-7023
Email
Amy Emerson is the assistant dean for Library and Information Services and professor of law. She manages law library operations and strategic planning, oversees the legal research curriculum and teaches courses in law and technology. Emerson’s full profile is available in the faculty directory.
Hannah Fassbender
Access and Collection Associate
Room 154
(610) 519-7029
Email
Hannah Fassbender is an access and collection associate responsible for digitizing and scanning the law school’s archival materials. She also supports and maintains print archives and curates and digitizes faculty scholarship and student journalism. Hannah also works at the circulation desk.
Before joining the library staff in September 2023, she worked as an archivist and circulation assistant at Penn State Berks’ Thun Library. Fassbender has a BA in communication, arts and sciences from The Pennsylvania State University and is currently working towards her master's in communication at Â鶹Èë¿Ú.
Michael Furey
Head of Emerging Law Practice Technology and Instructor
Room 164
(610) 519-7780
Email
Michael Furey serves as the head of emerging law practice technology. His work focuses on researching existing and emerging technology solutions for use in legal practice, scholarship and curriculum. Furey is also the advisor to the Murphy Family Endowed Moot Court Board.
Furey earned his BA in political science at Haverford College and his law degree from Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law. Before law school, he was a fellow with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including two years with its Office of Enforcement. At Â鶹Èë¿Ú, Furey served as managing editor of research and writing for the Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law Review. He is working towards a Master of Science in computer science with a concentration in artificial intelligence at St. Joseph’s University.Ìý
Mary Jo Heacock
Associate Director for Collection Management
Room 165
(610) 519-7896
Email
Mary Jo Heacock supervises the Law Library's collection development processes: including acquisitions, cataloging and collection management. She also manages the library budget and integrated library system. She is the library's government documents coordinator for the Federal Depository Library Program. She processes new print and electronic materials for the collection and assembles data for the annual collection, circulation and other statistical reports.
HeacockÌýjoined the Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law Library in 2004. She holds a master's in library and information sciences from Drexel University and a bachelor’s in education from Kutztown University.
Jason Happ
Head of Digital Initiatives & Legal Research Instructor
Room 160
(610) 519-6256
Email
Jason Happ serves as the head of digital initiatives. He was previously the access services librarian at the Howard University School of Law, where he taught legal research, managed circulation and assisted with faculty research projects. He has practiced law in Maryland and Washington, DC. He received his master's of library science (MLS) from the University of Maryland at College Park and subsequently worked as a librarian for an AM Law 100 firm in Washington, DC. He received his JD from Tulane Law School and a BA in history and political science: international relations from Tulane University. His full profile can be found in the faculty directory.
Robert Hegadorn
Foreign, Comparative and International Law Librarian & Legal Research Instructor
Room 163
(610) 519-7021
Email
Robert Hegadorn currently supports the scholarly work of faculty as a faculty liaison librarian and as the foreign, comparative, and international law specialist. In addition to his reference and research support, he teaches several sections of legal research in the first-year curriculum. He also guest lectures on a variety of research topics, including health law, litigation writing and tax law for the clinics and the Graduate Tax program.
Before joining the Law Library staff in 2006, Hegadorn practiced law in Missouri and was later a reference librarian at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law Library. Robert earned his BA from Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri, his JD from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law and his MA in information science and learning technology from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Information Science and Learning Technology. His full profile can be found in the faculty directory.
Emma Kearney
Access Services Librarian & Legal Research Instructor
Room 162
(610) 519-5454
Email
Emma Kearney teaches first-year legal research, supports faculty scholarship and teaching as a liaison librarian, consults with students on research strategies and supervises the student circulation workers at the library. She received her master of library science (MLS) from Indiana University Bloomington and her JD from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. For undergraduate studies, she attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA. During law school, she gained experience working with public defender's offices in Nashville and Atlanta and with the federal defenders for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Kearney joined the library in March 2022. Her full profile can be foundÌýin the faculty directory. Ìý
Michael Pratt
Scholarly Services Associate
Room 155
(610) 519-6301
Email
Michael Pratt is responsible for monitoring and maintaining the library’s collections of Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law faculty scholarship, student publications and digital collections. He curates and publishes these items to SSRN, LawArXiv, our BePress Digital Commons repository and University faculty publication systems while monitoring faculty profiles and citation counts in HeinOnline and other platforms as they become available. Pratt fulfills interlibrary loan requests for faculty and students, including those from student journals and processes interlibrary loan requests from other academic libraries. He also maintains and updates the library’s ongoing print subscriptions. Pratt joined the Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law Library staff in 1992. He attended Hofstra University and has a BA in history from Â鶹Èë¿Ú.
Amy Spare
Associate Director for Library Services
Room 157
(610) 519-7188
Email
Amy Spare coordinates law library services for faculty, students and visitors, including reference, ILL, circulation, reserves, collection development and permissions. She also teaches legal research in the first-year curriculum, serves as a faculty advisor in the professional development course and guest lectures in upper-level classes on research strategies in areas such as administrative law, criminal law, sexuality and the law, government documents and fact finding.Ìý
Before coming to Â鶹Èë¿Ú Law in 2005, Spare provided research services in a major law firm in Houston, Texas, and headed the Government Publications Department at Rice University, a patent and trademark depository library. As a practicing attorney, she worked for the Alaska Public Defender’s Offices in Bethel and Anchorage and for Central Pennsylvania Legal Services. Spare holds a JD from Northeastern University College of Law and an MLIS from the University of Texas at Austin. Her full profile can be foundÌýin the faculty directory.
Academic Year Reference Hours:
Monday-Friday: 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
For evening and weekend assistance, email reference@law.villanova.edu. Messages are typically handled by the reference librarians within 24 hours.
Reference Librarians are available for individual appointments via phone, email or Zoom. For contact information, see the Library Staff Directory.