Paula Schaefer joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2008 and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2019 to 2023. She teaches Professional Responsibility, Civil Procedure, Contracts, and Lawyering & Professionalism. She also coordinates and teaches in the Semester in Residence program.

Schaefer’s scholarship considers issues of attorney ethics, fiduciary duty, professional identity, and leadership in the legal profession. Her articles have been published in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Maryland Law Review, Florida State University Law Review, and other journals. She is the co-author of Professional Responsibility in the Life of the Lawyer, the author of Developing Professional Skills: Civil Procedure, and the co-author of Developing Professional Skills: Professional Responsibility.  She also writes in the area of legal education reform, with a focus on professionalism issues. She was one of many authors of the book Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World.

Schaefer serves as a subject matter expert for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. She has received the Harold Warner Outstanding Teacher Award, the Bass, Berry & Sims Award for Outstanding Service to the Bench and Bar, and the Carden Award for Outstanding Service to the Institution. She regularly speaks on attorney ethics topics to various groups and is a contributing author to the Knoxville Bar Association’s “Schooled in Ethics” column.

As a lawyer, Schaefer practiced in the area of business litigation at Shook, Hardy & Bacon and Bryan Cave in Kansas City, Missouri. After law school, she clerked for Ann K. Covington, the first woman to serve on the Missouri Supreme Court. A native Missourian, Schaefer’s claim to fame is that Harry S. Truman once called her “a cute little red-headed baby.”

• Education & Experience
• Publications

J.D., 1996, University of Missouri School of Law
B.A., (magna cum laude), 1993, University of Missouri

Curriculum Vitae

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Full list of SSRN scholarly papers