As it relocates from Suffolk University to Boston College Law School, the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy has named a new executive director.

Elisabeth Medvedow, previously executive director of the Boston-based nonprofit Discovering Justice, begins her new post today.

“She has experience as a government lawyer and running a non-profit. That was a really a fantastic combination of skills,” said R. Michael Cassidy, a Boston College law professor who is the Rappaport center’s faculty director. “It was a very strong and competitive field, but she rose to the top.”

The Phyllis & Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation donated $7.5 million to Boston College to endow the center after Suffolk University Law School last year ended its relationship with it, which dated back to 2000.

As part of the transition to Boston College, the center is expected to take more of an academic than career focus, sponsoring conferences on stubborn public policy issues affecting Massachusetts and Boston in particular, Cassidy said. That will include a more interdisciplinary approach involving members of other academic departments, he said.

“We’re going to select topics that can really help the city focus on urban problems. We hope that Boston College can serve as a facilitator for those kinds of discussions,” he said.

Medvedow is a former executive director of the Women’s Bar Association and Women’s Bar Foundation in Massachusetts. She worked as a Massachusetts assistant attorney general for more than 10 years.

Most recently, she led Discovering Justice, a Boston-based organization that sponsors programs that teach elementary and middle school students about the justice system.

The center’s first advisory board meeting will be held May 27. The organization has chosen 12 summer fellows who will begin work in public service positions in June.