Vicki Pepper

Victoria L. Pepper JD ’83, retired in late 2017 after a career as an attorney in federal service. Over a career spanning more than 30 years she served in the executive branch, including in the United States Department of Justice and working in and with agencies of the United States Intelligence Community. As a practitioner Vicki has over 25 years of experience working legal and legal-related policy issues pertaining to the national security, including often complex and frequently novel issues of constitutional law, intelligence oversight, information law and policy, security, litigation, and administrative law. Professor Pepper has kept busy in her semi-retirement, primarily through teaching business law to undergraduates while serving as an adjunct professor in the Law Program of Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida; and serving as a volunteer in various coastal environmental educational and scientific research programs of the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve ("GTM NERR") in Ponte Vedra, Florida. More recently, early in 2021, Professor Pepper also became a founding member of Community Advocates for Racial Equity (CARE), an informal independent civic action group that grew out of St. Augustine’s ongoing "community conversations" effort. After attending Reunion 2018 and discussions with CLS administration, she decided to put together a seminar course drawn from her extensive experience that explored significant national security legal and policy issues spring semester 2019. In this endeavor, she initially teamed with another Law School adjunct, Cornell Government Professor Sarah Kreps, who has a very different background and career path, but who shares her keen interest in national security issues. In fall semester 2019, in addition to the seminar, Professor Pepper also developed and offered an upper-class course in National Security Law that may be offered again in future years. Professor Pepper has enjoyed the transition to teaching at the law school level as well as the opportunity to return to Ithaca more frequently and engage Cornell Law Students on some of the most challenging and significant legal and policy issues of our times. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, she was only able to offer her seminar virtually for fall semester 2020, but Professor Pepper looks forward to returning to Ithaca in the fall semester 2021 to engage students in person on national security law issues and policy.