This year, the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law confirmed the tenured status of five professors. Professors Ederlina Co, Dan Croxall ‘08, Pamela Izvănariu, Mary-Beth Moylan, and Rachel Van Cleave will receive tenure, effective on September 1.  

Tenure is a rigorous, multi-year process that requires faculty to demonstrate sustained excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service to the academic community. The tenure process requires a recommendation from their faculty colleagues, followed by approval from the university provost and president. 

“I am proud to recognize Professors Co, Croxall, Izvănariu, Moylan, and Van Cleave on this significant professional achievement,” Dean Michael T. Colatrella Jr. said. “Earning tenure reflects years of dedication to teaching, scholarship, and service, and each of these faculty members has made a meaningful impact on our students, our institution, and the legal community.” 

Ederlina Co 

Ederlina Co teaches Global Lawyering Skills, the Prisoner Civil Rights Mediation Clinic, and Reproductive Rights and Justice at McGeorge School of Law. She joined the faculty in 2016. Her research focuses on reproductive rights and justice, with publications such as Abortion Privilege (Rutgers Law Review, 2021) and contributions to Feminist Judgments: Reproductive Justice Rewritten (Cambridge Press, 2020). She has also written on equity in legal education, alternative dispute resolution, and cultural competency in law. 

In 2022, Co received Pacific’s Woman of Distinction Award and the Hether C. Macfarlane Teaching Innovation Award. She was also recognized in 2023 as the Faculty Member of the Year by the Public Legal Services Society. Before joining the McGeorge faculty, Co spent nearly a decade clerking for the Hon. Dale A. Drozd at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Prior to that, she was Counsel at NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington, D.C. 

“Mostly, I felt grateful,” Co said. “Grateful for my mentors and colleagues who supported me throughout my academic career, for my students who trusted me at such an important moment in their educational journeys, and for my family, who were with me every step of the way, from my job talk at McGeorge to the moment Dean Colatrella called with the tenure news."

Co received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a JD degree from Georgetown University Law Center. 

Dan Croxall ‘08 

Dan Croxall ’08 started teaching at McGeorge School of Law in 2016. During his time, Croxall created and teaches the world’s first craft beer law class at McGeorge. As a leading scholar in craft beer and alcoholic beverage law, he frequently presents at law schools and conferences, including at Harvard, UCLA, and Northwestern. Croxall has published articles in several law reviews and is finishing the first craft beer law textbook for law schools and breweries.  

In addition to Craft Beer Law, Croxall teaches Civil Procedure, Evidence, Global Lawyering Skills I, II, and III, Professional Responsibility, and Political Science 175 on the University of the Pacific’s Stockton campus. In 2022-24, Croxall served as the director of the Pacific Legal Advantage Program before becoming Associate Dean of Admissions in 2025. The PLA program is designed to expose undergraduate students to the legal field and prepare them for law school. 

“Receiving tenure at McGeorge is the highest honor of my professional career,” Croxall said. “It is something I have strived for since I began my career in academia. The vote of confidence from my colleagues and the University means the world to me. I am eternally grateful.”  

Croxall received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and a JD degree from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.  

Pamela Izvănariu 

Dr. Pamela Izvănariu, a legal and sociological scholar, started teaching at McGeorge in 2024, where she uses historical, legal, and empirical methodologies to investigate both historical and contemporary questions on law, labor, inequality, and social movements. Her research examines the unrecognized movement of lawyering, mobilization, and empirical methods of John P. Davis. While also exploring the impact of platform-based companies and emerging platform-based worker laws on workers’ lives in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe.  

Izvănariu’s work has been published in top law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, including Michigan Journal on Race & Law, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.  

Izvǎnariu has been recognized for her work as an educator by the Kennedy Center. She was awarded the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Award, a grant that publicly recognizes American teachers by spotlighting their impact on the lives of students. 

Izvǎnariu received a bachelor’s degree from DePaul University, a JD degree from Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, an LLM degree in International and Comparative Law and Critical Race Theory from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and a PhD in Sociology from the City University of New York. 

Mary-Beth Moylan 

Mary-Beth Moylan joined the McGeorge faculty in 2000, teaching many courses throughout her time at the university, including Global Lawyering Skills I and II, the program she co-founded, Civil Procedure, Election Law, California Initiative Seminar, and Introduction to Legal Analysis. Moylan is also the co-author of Global Lawyering Skills (West 2013) and Global Lawyering Skills: Second Edition (West 2018), a legal skills textbook that focuses on cross-border and cross-cultural considerations in lawyering skills and practice. Moylan has contributed to McGeorge’s legal clinics, externships, and pro bono work, and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2019-2024.  

With expertise in politics and government, she supervises and teaches the California Initiative Review, providing election analysis to the public. Moylan is often interviewed by local news media for expert advice on state constitutional issues, conflicts of interest, and other election-related topics. Moylan regularly provides a summary of the propositions to Capital Public Radio’s Insight program in advance of each general election. 

“My commitment to McGeorge students, my dedication to my colleagues, and my ambitions for my scholarship have been the primary focus of my career,” Moylan said. “When I heard that I had been granted tenure, I felt like my level of commitment to the institution was finally fully reciprocated. I did not know how much I needed that validation until it arrived. Sharing the recognition and promotion with two of my long-time colleagues makes the celebration all the more sweet.” 

Moylan received a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a JD degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Rachel Van Cleave 

Rachel Van Cleave joined the faculty at McGeorge School of Law as a Visiting Professor of Law in 2024 before joining the full-time faculty in 2026. Van Cleave teaches Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Global Lawyering Skills I. Previously, she taught at Golden Gate University School of Law (GGU), where she designed and taught innovative courses such as Reimagining Criminal Justice, Comparative #MeToo, Rebellious Lawyering, and Katrina and Disaster Law. At GGU Law, she served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and later as GGU Law’s dean. 

In 1995, Van Cleave received a J. William Fulbright Scholarship to engage in research at Italy’s Constitutional Court on Italy’s adoption of plea bargaining, which was somewhat modeled on the U.S. practice. She has continued to engage in comparative criminal justice scholarships, particularly as to gender-based violence. In 2020, she received another J. William Fulbright Scholarship to engage in research at Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassazione. 

“I am delighted to make McGeorge my new professional home,” Van Cleave said. “I have enjoyed being a part of the community as a visitor for the last two years and look forward to continuing as a tenured faculty member. I have taught at a number of law schools, at two of which I had tenure, and have found the faculty, staff, and students at McGeorge to be welcoming, kind, and supportive.” 

Van Cleave received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, a JD degree from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and a JSM degree from Stanford University School of Law.