Ellen teaches legal ethics and agricultural & food law courses for JD students and un[a]uthorized practice of law courses for other professionals. She is a co-author on several legal ethics texts, a member of the NC State Bar Ethics Committee, and a subject-matter expert for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. She also serves on the ABA's Standing Committee for the Public Protection in the Provision of Legal Services.

Ellen served as Wake Forest Law's first Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives and first Assistant Dean of Instructional Technologies and Design. An online teacher since 2009, she was the chief administrative and curricular architect of the school's online Master of Studies in Law, the law school's first fully online degree.

A native of Eastern North Carolina, Ellen has a BS in Agribusiness and an LLM in Agriculture and Food Law from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville). She has served as a board member at Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture (BRWIA), a nonprofit that serves the North Carolina High Country.

Prior to joining Wake Forest Law, Ellen was a United States federal appeals court clerk (The Honorable Frank J. Magill, 8th Circuit), a corporate lawyer, and the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Lawyer Assistance Program. She is a 2002 graduate of Wake Forest Law, where she served as Editor in Chief of the law review.