Since 2005, Professor Petzke has taught academic writing, legal writing and legal English at CUNY’s John Jay College, Columbia University, New York University and the Fordham and Pace University schools of law.  After receiving his J.D. degree from the University of Southern California. he practiced law privately in Los Angeles and later became legal advisor and senior deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Edmund D. Edelman.  He served five years on the Los Angeles County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, the Los Angeles City/County AIDS Commission and as liaison to the largest countywide state court criminal justice system in the United States.  Following his service in Los Angeles County government, Professor Petzke served for nearly a decade as deputy attorney general, Correctional Law Division, in the administrations of four successive California attorneys general. He was the attorney general’s liaison to the wardens of California’s San Quentin (death row) and Pelican Bay (super-maximum) state prison facilities.  Professor Petzke taught his first course to a group of medium security inmates at San Quentin State Prison in the late 1990s. He obtained a B.S. degree in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and a Master’s degree in Education & Applied Linguistics from Georgia State University.