First Monday - July 3, 2006

In this Issue:

• New Associate Deans Announced
• New Members Names to Law Advisory Council

New Associate Deans Announced

During a “hail and farewell” reception in the foyer of the Menard Law Building, members of the law school community expressed gratitude to Professor D. Benjamin Beard, who, after six years of outstanding service as Associate Dean, is returning to full-time regular faculty status. He will be succeeded, in an expansion and restructuring of the associate deanship, by Professor Elizabeth Brandt (Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs) and Professor Richard H. Seamon (Associate Dean for Administration and Students).

• Professor Beard will resume full-time teaching in commercial law subjects. His courses in recent years have included Property, Sales, Negotiable Instruments, Suretyship, and Creditors’ Rights. He practiced commercial and corporate law before coming to academia. Professor Beard has served as the Reporter for the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, adopted in more than 35 states and followed as a model for the federal E-Sign legislation adopted in June, 2000.
• Dean Brandt will handle matters relating to faculty personnel, professional development, and curriculum. She will continue teaching Family Law, Community Property, and Wills & Trusts. Professor Brandt practiced law with a major firm in Cleveland, Ohio, before joining the UI law faculty. She is a member of the editorial board of the American Bar Association’s Family Law Quarterly and a principal author of Idaho law manuals on high-conflict divorce and child protection. A past national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, she recently co-authored with Idaho Congressman C. L. “Butch” Otter an article on the USA Patriot Act, published in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy.
• Dean Seamon will handle matters relating to students and internal administration of the College. He will continue teaching Civil Procedure and Administrative Law (a field in which he is co-author of one of the main national casebooks). His career path to academia included a clerkship in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Judge Kenneth W. Starr), followed by service in the Department of Justice as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States during the administrations of the first President Bush and President Clinton. While serving in the Solicitor General’s Office he was a colleague of now-Chief Justice John Roberts, and he presented oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in fifteen cases. His recent article on national security and criminal law enforcement has been published by the Harvard Journal on Law & Public Policy.

Further information about the new associate deans and the leadership structure at the College of Law may be obtained from Dean Burnett at dburnett@uidaho.edu.

New Members Named to Law Advisory Council

The UI College of Law Advisory Council, a distinguished group of graduates and friends of the College, welcomes the following new members, listed here in alphabetical order. They will commence their service during the Council’s fall 2006 meeting in Moscow:

• James C. Dale, of Boise, partner in the firm of Stoel Rives, LLP
• Hon. Karen L. Lansing, of Boise, judge of the Idaho Court of Appeals
• Hon. John T. Mitchell, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho state district judge, First Judicial District
• Nancy Morris, of Washington, D.C., Secretary of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
• Hon. Stephen S. Trott, of Boise, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Current members of the Law Advisory Council are James A. Bevis, of Boise; John R. Alexander, of Twin Falls; L. Michael Bogert, of Washington, D.C.; Sally Geisler Bagshaw, of Seattle; Bart M. Davis, of Idaho Falls; Laura M. Bettis, of Boise; Allen R. Derr, of Boise; James M. English, of Hayden, Idaho; Dennis Johnson, of Boise; Trudy Hanson Fouser, of Boise; Cynthia J. Larsen (president), of Sacramento, California; Mary R. Giannini, of Spokane, Washington; J. Frederick Mack, of Boise; C. Timothy Hopkins (incoming president), of Idaho Falls; William V. McCann, Jr., of Lewiston; Briane “Nels” Nelson Mitchell, of Los Angeles, California; James E. Rogers, of Las Vegas, Nevada; William W. Nixon, of Coeur d’Alene; Hon. N. Randy Smith, of Pocatello; Jon Oliver, of Charlottesville, Virginia; Hon. John Stegner, of Moscow; William A. Parsons, of Burley; Hon. Linda Copple Trout, of Boise; and James E. Whistler (past president), of San Diego, California.

Further information about the Law Advisory Council is available from College of Law Director of Development.