Prior to joining the Rutgers–Camden community, Haddon served as dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, which benefited from the new, transformative academic resources and intellectual vitality that occurred under her leadership. In 2011, the school received a $30 million commitment from the W.P. Carey Foundation, the largest gift ever received by the University and its law school.
The new resources, targeted toward faculty development, allowed Haddon to strengthen the school’s already nationally ranked programs in health, environmental and clinical law and to allocate additional resources to build its newer programs in business and intellectual property law. She also enriched students’ legal education by expanding the law school’s commitment to recruiting a diverse student body.
In 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 Haddon was honored by the National Jurist as one of the “25 Most Influential People in Legal Education.” In 2012, the Daily Record of Baltimore named her one of the “Top 100 Women” in Maryland; in 2010, the newspaper named her as one of the year’s most Influential Marylanders. In 2011, she received the Great Teacher Award from the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT).
In Maryland, Haddon has been honored by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture; serves on the board of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women; and is a member of the Lawyers’ Round Table, the 2011 class of Leadership Maryland, and Network 2000.
Haddon currently is a member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on the Future of Legal Services. She has served on numerous boards, including the Delaware Valley Community Reinvestment Fund, the Women’s Law Project, the William Penn Foundation, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, and the Philadelphia Education Fund. In addition, she is on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
She also served as co-president of the board of governors and as a member of the executive committee of the Society of American Law Teachers, as a member of the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools, and as a trustee of the Law School Admissions Council.
In 2014, Haddon was an invited speaker at the 91st annual meeting of the American Law Institute, where other invited speakers included U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and U.S. Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was named among the "2014 Women of Distinction" by Philadelphia Business Journal. In January 2015, she delivered the keynote address at the 20th Mid-Atlantic People of Color Conference. She is a recipient of the 2015 New Jersey Women Lawyers Association’s Women’s Initiative and Leaders in Law Platinum Award.
Chancellor Haddon offers her thoughts on being named “Trailblazer of the Year” by the National Association of Women Business Owners in New Jersey in 2016 in this video.
Prior to joining UM Carey Law, Haddon served for more than 25 years as a distinguished faculty member at the Temple University Beasley School of Law. An accomplished scholar on constitutional law and tort law, she is the co-author of two casebooks in those fields and has written numerous scholarly articles on equal protection, jury participation, academic freedom and diversity.
During her years at Temple, she fought racial and gender bias on the Pennsylvania bench and bar, serving on several state and city bodies, including the City of Philadelphia Board of Ethics. Previously she practiced at Wilmer Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., and clerked for the Honorable Joseph F. Weis Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Haddon earned an LL.M. from Yale Law School in 1985 and a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Duquesne University School of Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the Duquesne Law Review, in 1977. She received a bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1972 and served as vice chair of the Smith College Board of Trustees until 2009.
Born in Washington, D.C., Haddon spent much of her childhood in Passaic, New Jersey, where her mother was a public school teacher and her father served as a dentist. She is married to Frank McClellan, a 1967 graduate of Rutgers University–New Brunswick and a professor emeritus at Temple University law school. She has a daughter and two sons.