Thursday, August 21, 2025
By Micah Gilmer
As Liberty Law starts the 2025-26 academic year, it welcomes several new faculty members to the Liberty Law community. These new faculty members bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to Liberty Law and will help advance the mission of training Champions for Christ.
Carl Benoit, Associate Professor of Law
Professor Carl Benoit joins Liberty Law as an associate professor of law with a distinguished career at the FBI, in which he developed unique legal experience in constitutional law, criminal law, and evidence.
Professor Benoit has a particular love for teaching and for the students in his classroom. For Professor Benoit, training students is more than just equipping them with legal knowledge. “I want them to walk away with a love of the law, but I want them to walk away with the grounding knowledge of the Lawgiver,” he said. “Even if I can only show them a little piece of that, … it can open the doors for every part.” Benoit is excited to share both his faith and expertise with Liberty Law.
Professor Benoit holds a B.S. in Business and Economics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received his J.D. from Albany Law School, magna cum laude.
Brett Bloom, Associate Professor of Law
Liberty Law welcomes back alumnus Brett Bloom to serve as associate professor of law. Before returning to his alma mater, Professor Bloom spent over 10 years working in international taxation law. Most recently, he has worked as an attorney-advisor for the International Tax Counsel for the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy. Before that, he worked at KPMG and in private tax practice. As a practitioner, he has published in Bloomberg Tax, Tax Notes International, and The Tax Adviser.
Professor Bloom’s teaching highlights the importance of thinking like a Christian about the law. “It all comes from God,” he noted, “so understanding that … gives you a different perspective when you’re thinking of your role as an attorney and what God wants you to do with that.” He desires to model meekness, noting how that Christlike trait is often overlooked in the legal world.
Professor Bloom is excited to be coming in during this season of student body growth. “God has blessed the law school with the largest incoming 1L class, there’s alignment of the leadership and the vision, and I think that God has sovereignly called me to the law school at a very opportune time.”
Professor Bloom received his B.S. at Marantha Baptist University. He graduated with a J.D. from Liberty Law in 2012. After his time at Liberty Law, he earned his LL.M. in taxation at Georgetown University Law Center.
David Gilbert, Visiting Associate Professor of Law
Liberty Law also welcomes back David Gilbert as visiting associate professor of law. Professor Gilbert’s versatile and distinguished skillset comes from a long career in practice and legal academy. His experience includes serving as both an assistant and deputy attorney general in the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office. He also served as a law clerk to a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court and he served as a shareholder and vice president of a private practice in West Virginia, as well as having clerked for a West Virginia trial judge. In addition, he previously taught at Liberty Law.
“God has been stoking my desire to teach, to write, and to minister to students,” Professor Gilbert noted. “I found that returning to Liberty was the thing I wanted and that I was convinced God wanted.” Gilbert’s faith, and emphasis on walking by faith both daily and within the legal career, brings a Christ-centered perspective of teaching law to students. “Jesus is the Master we serve in every area of life, including the law,” Professor Gilbert said. “Law can be (and is) as much His service as preaching or serving on the mission field. Indeed, the people He brings our way are our mission field, regardless of whether we’re billing them by the hour, prosecuting them, or chatting with them over the coffee pot.”
Professor Gilbert holds a B.A. in pre-law from Bob Jones University, summa cum laude. He received his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Nancy Kippenhan, Visiting Associate Professor of Law
Nancy Kippenhan, a previous Liberty Law professor, returns after a lengthy professorship at the Liberty University School of Business, both online and residentially. Bringing over 27 years of experience back to Liberty Law, Professor Kippenhan has a seasoned background in teaching business law and federal jurisdiction. She also contributes to the scholarship community, being the editor for Biblical Worldview Edition of Dynamic Business Law (4th ed.).
As she has watched the university’s growth over the past several years, Professor Kippenhan is delighted to see Liberty Law particularly thriving. “We love our students, and we’re truly interested in their personal and professional success,” she noted. “(That success) shines as the light of Christ in the way (our students) live, the way they practice law, and the influence they share in our hurting world.” She added that thinking relationally, as Christ does, helps lawyers to deal with the law in a considerate and beneficial manner. “Just as we are informed by the ‘one another’ verses in our personal relationships, we should be guided by those same principles in creating organizations and providing counsel.”
Professor Kippenhan holds an M.B.A. and B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received her J.D. from Widener University School of Law, magna cum laude.
Jeffery Tuomala, Visiting Associate Professor of Law
After a season of retirement, we are pleased to welcome back Jeffery Tuomala to Liberty Law as a visiting professor of law. Tuomala is a founding faculty member of Liberty Law and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2003 to 2011. A former Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Professor Tuomala spent an extensive amount of his career as a judge advocate and teacher to military officers throughout the world. He has taught at multiple universities, consulted a former chief justice, and was a general practitioner in Geneva, Ohio. His publications can be found in several university law reviews.
Professor Tuomala’s faith in Christ necessitates his biblical teaching style. “One of the key things about Jesus’s teaching that I want my students to latch onto is the Two Great Commandments—to love God and love your neighbor,” Professor Tuomala said. “The entire Old Testament (Law and the Prophets) hang on those two commandments.”
Professor Tuomala holds his J.D. from Capital University Law and Graduate Center. With highest honors, he received an LL.M. from the George Washington University National Law Center. He furthered his study with postgraduate work at Ashland Theological Seminary.
For more information about Liberty University School of Law and its faculty, please visit our website.