Annette Appell is a professor and former Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at Washington University Law School in St. Louis.  She previously was Associate Dean for Clinical Studies at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

She began her involvement in child protection and adoption reform in 1988 as an Assistant Public Guardian in Cook County, Illinois where she represented hundreds of children as attorney and guardian ad litem in child protection, termination of parental rights and adoption proceedings.

She subsequently joined the teaching staff of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University where she supervised students in representing parents, relatives, and children in child protection, termination of parental rights and adoption proceedings, taught seminars on child protection and served on committees to reform the juvenile court.

Before going to teach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, she was an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina where she taught individual liberties and a termination of parental rights clinic. At Boyd, her teaching duties included courses in civil procedure/alternative dispute resolution and a child welfare clinic.

Ms. Appell has published numerous legal articles regarding children, parents and the state, and adoption.  She has also testified before the Illinois, Nevada, and South Carolina legislatures, and continues to serve on committees, boards and panels relating to child welfare policy, practice and reform.