An internationally respected legal scholar, educator, and leader, Paula Monopoli ’76 has demonstrated extraordinary intellectual achievement, principled leadership, and a lasting impact on the legal profession. We are delighted to honor her with the Williston Northampton Medal, presented to an individual who has made significant achievements and contributions to their profession and/or community, shown a commitment to professional growth, or is recognized for leadership in their field.
A chaired professor of law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, Monopoli serves as a Distinguished University Professor and Sol & Carlyn Hubert Professor of Law. Her teaching focuses on gender and constitutional design, feminist legal history, and inheritance law; and has shaped national and international conversations on gender equality, constitutional structure, and legal pedagogy. She has taught extensively in the areas of property; trusts and estates; and gender and law; and has mentored generations of law students and future leaders along the way.
After graduating from Williston, Monopoli graduated cum laude from Yale College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science, and later received her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. She comes from a proud Williston family that includes her brothers, Rich ’89 and Dan ’92, and niece, Allie Lewis ’14. Paula and Rich currently serve as members of the Board of Trustees, as well, with Paula joining the Board in 2022. A dedicated and engaged member of the Williston community, she has maintained a lasting connection to the school, including serving as Convocation Speaker in 2006 and as the keynote speaker at last year’s Northampton School for Girls 100th celebration.
Monopoli has held several of the University of Maryland’s most prestigious academic appointments. She was named a Marbury Research Professor in 2008; received the University’s Founders Week Professor of the Year Award in 2013; was appointed the Sol & Carlyn Hubert Professor of Law in 2016; and was named Distinguished University Professor in 2025. Additionally, she served as a visiting scholar at the Moller Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge University, from 2017 to 2020.
In addition to her work teaching, Monopoli is the author and editor of four books, including Constitutional Orphan: Gender Equality and the Nineteenth Amendment, published by Oxford University Press, and Contemporary Trusts & Estates, a leading casebook used in law schools nationwide. Her influential law review articles have appeared in top-tier journals such as the Yale Law Journal, Virginia Law Review Online, Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Washington University Law Review. Her article Gender and Constitutional Design, published in the Yale Law Journal, was selected for inclusion among the most important and influential scholarship in feminist constitutionalism.
Beyond her scholarship, Monopoli has been a powerful advocate for gender equality within the legal profession and legal education, founding Maryland Carey Law’s innovative Women, Leadership & Equality Program—the first law school women’s fellowship program of its kind in the nation. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute and an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
