Rebecca Delfino teaches both doctrinal and experiential courses in civil procedure, appellate law, professional responsibility, civil procedure, and judicial process. In addition, she teaches a seminar on generative AI and the future of legal practice, exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping the legal profession, legal reasoning, and access to justice.
Her research lies at the intersection of law, current events, and systemic disruptions — examining how the legal system responds to emergent threats such as the opioid epidemic, synthetic media and deepfake technologies, and mass migration. Her scholarship draws from multiple disciplines to address institutional design, risk allocation, and access to justice, with an emphasis on how law can offer redress, deterrence, and resilience in the face of unfolding societal challenges
Delfino’s recent scholarship examines how generative AI and deepfakes are reshaping the legal system, with a focus on judicial ethics, evidentiary integrity, and access to justice. In spring 2025 she published “Pay-to-Play” in the Seton Hall Law Review, which builds on her earlier work on the deepfake defense. Her recent white paper, “Deepfakes on Trial 2.0“ was cited by the Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules at the U.S. Judicial Conference. Professor Delfino is authoring the chapter on Deepfakes and Criminal Law for Oxford University’s The Oxford Handbook on AI and Criminal Justice (forthcoming 2026), and has an in-progress article, “Artificial Authority: Judicial Disclosure, Old Values, and New Machines“ addressing the judiciary’s use of generative AI in decision-making.
She is an NPR contributor who has provided expert testimony to state and international courts on the growing proliferation and harms of deepfakes. She frequently trains and advises diverse legal audiences — including trial and appellate judges in Louisiana and Illinois and members of the Canadian judiciary — on navigating the evidentiary and policy implications of synthetic media.
From 2022 to 2025, Professor Delfino served as associate dean for Clinical Programs and Experiential Learning. In that capacity, she oversaw the law school’s 21 live-client clinics, its robust array of legal skills courses, and its extensive experiential learning programs, including trial and appellate advocacy, field placements, public interest and entertainment law programs, practicums, and academic centers. As associate dean, she worked closely with the LLS and LMU administrations on curricular design, academic policy, faculty development, and strategic budgetary planning. She also led initiatives to support teaching excellence, particularly in clinical pedagogy and professional skills instruction.