BU Law News

BU Law Celebrates 2025 Retiring Faculty

Professors Nancy Moore and David Walker have made a lasting impact on countless students and the legal community as a whole during their decades at BU Law.

Professor of Law Nancy J. Moore

Professor of Law and Nancy Barton Scholar Nancy J. Moore has served as a valued member of the Boston University School of Law faculty for over twenty-five years. As a nationally recognized leader in the field of legal ethics, Moore has taught courses on professional responsibility, evidence, and torts, and seminars on lawyering in the 21st century and legal ethics for business lawyers. Prior to joining BU Law in 1999, Professor Moore taught at Rutgers University School of Law for twenty-two years, where she offered the school’s first course on professional responsibility. She has been prolific in her scholarship, writing over fifty articles on professional responsibility, torts, and biomedical ethics, including “What Doctors Can Learn From Lawyers About Conflicts of Interest” published by the Boston University Law Review. She has also published a casebook titled Professional Responsibility for Business Lawyers. Moore was drawn to the field of professional responsibility during her time prosecuting as an assistant Attorney General in Philadelphia prior to joining legal academia.

Professor and Paul M. Siskind Scholar David H. Webber shares, “No one knows more about professional responsibility and legal ethics than Nancy. She is one of those rare scholars who weaves together knowledge of the doctrine and a sense of how things work in the real world. She has superb judgment, she sees through the nonsense, and she is a fount of good advice. She will be missed!”

Moore has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work on legal ethics, including the Sanford D. Levy Professional Ethics Award from the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics. “Very few people have contributed more to an understanding of professional ethics than Nancy Moore,” shared NY Bar President Richard Lewis regarding her award. “She is among the nation’s foremost authorities on one of the most critical subjects of our profession in addition to being a superb author, educator, and role model.” Moore also received the 2021 Michael Franck Professional Responsibility Award from the American Bar Association (ABA) Center for Professional Responsibility.

In addition to her academic and scholarly contributions, Moore has served as the chief reporter for the ABA Commission on Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct and as chair of the Multi-State Professional Responsibility Examination Test Drafting Committee. She has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Professional Responsibility twice and is a member of the American Law Institute, where she previously served as an adviser to its Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers.

“I was always delighted to work with Nancy on any committee or initiative. She is a thoughtful and careful lawyer whose deep knowledge of professional ethics and her own work ethic guaranteed consistently high-quality interactions,” says Professor Maria O’Brien, who has long been an office neighbor and close colleague of Moore’s. “I admire her dedication to students and her deliberate and calm approach to every issue—she will be missed!”

Moore earned a BA from Smith College and her JD from Columbia University, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and member of the board of editors of the Columbia Law Review. 

Professor of Law David I. Walker

Since joining BU Law in 2002, Professor of Law and Maurice Poch Faculty Research Scholar David I. Walker has been an effective and generous contributor to the law school community. Beloved in the classroom, Professor Walker was the recipient of BU Law’s 2010 Michael Melton Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence and Boston University’s 2011 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching. “Long live Walker, Taxes Ranger!” shared one of Professor Walker’s students in regard to his Metcalf Award.

“David is a superb colleague, always available to help analyze a problem or read an early draft,” shares Professor Alan Feld. “His easygoing manner and common sense belie a sharp intellect, manifested in his many contributions in tax and business law.”

Professor Walker, who taught courses in taxation, corporate law, law and economics, and the economic structure of commercial transactions (“Deals”), has made an impact on generations of BU Law students, offering guidance and preparing graduates for successful careers in tax and business law practices. His scholarly research, which lies at the intersection of taxation and corporate governance with an emphasis on executive compensation, has garnered national recognition and appeared in numerous publications, including the University of Chicago Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and Tax Law Review. In 2025, he was tied for #24 of the top 119 US tax professors for the impact of his scholarship based on Google Scholar H-Index rankings.

In his twenty-two years at BU Law, Professor Walker has taken on many leadership roles, including service as associate dean for academic affairs, chair of the dean search committee, chair of the law school promotion and tenure committee, chair of the appointments committee, and chair of the academic standards committee, as well as serving on the university promotion and tenure committee.

“David Walker is a dream of a colleague,” shares the Hon. Frank R. Kenison Distinguished Scholar in Law Professor Stacey Dogan, who worked closely with Walker on the hiring committee and has been a longtime office neighbor. “The fact that he has served in so many critical roles attests to the trust and confidence that he inspires among deans and colleagues. David is a person who gets things done, and he does so with integrity and grace. He’s also an extraordinary teacher. We will miss him sorely!”

Walker earned his JD from Harvard Law School, where he received the John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics. After graduating law school, Walker clerked for Judge Karen Nelson Moore of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He later returned to Harvard Law School as a research fellow at the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business and worked as an associate at Ropes & Gray, where he practiced tax law with an emphasis on executive compensation.

Prior to his legal career, Walker received a BE in chemical engineering from Vanderbilt University and worked for twelve years in the oil industry.