About
Professor Mortazavi teaches and writes about torts, legal ethics, administrative law, and food law and policy, where she explores tensions between law, institutions, and identity. Her articles have appeared in the Fordham, Columbia, UCLA, and Cardozo Law Reviews, amongst others. Professor Mortazavi is currently the Chair of the AALS Torts Section.
Professor Mortazavi joined the University of Oklahoma College of Law faculty in 2015, after serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. She earned tenure in 2020 and was awarded the President’s Second Century Professorship in 2021. Shortly thereafter, Professor Mortazavi went on to serve a term as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2022 until August of 2024. In 2023, she received the OU Trailblazer Award, a distinction afforded to only one faculty or staff member annually across all four of OU’s statewide campuses. In 2025, Professor Mortazavi was appointed to the Lou and Connie Miller Professorship in Law. Most recently, she received through peer review the 2026 Richardson Award for outstanding teaching and scholarship.
Professor Mortazavi earned her B.A., magna cum laude and with distinction, in Government and Theatre from Cornell University, where she was a Conger Wood Fellow and Phi Beta Kappa. In law school, she served as an Editor for the California Law Review and received the Allen F. Broussard Fellowship and the Department of Education’s Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship for Farsi. After graduating, Professor Mortazavi clerked for the Honorable Beverly B. Martin of the Northern District of Georgia.
Prior to teaching, Professor Mortazavi litigated at Debevoise & Plimpton L.L.P. where her practice included cases involving products liability, professional ethics, corporate governance, food and drug law, and sustainable resource and energy management. Professor Mortazavi also engaged in various significant pro bono civil rights representations, including briefing before the Supreme Court on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.