News

Were there any formative experiences at Minnesota Law that helped send you on your path (a class, a clinic, a professor, etc.)?

Yes, many, but I’ll pick two. First, Professor Kristin Hickman’s administrative law class opened my eyes to the power of the administrative state and its pervasive role in our daily lives. Second, serving on the Minnesota Law Review introduced me to legal scholarship on dozens of different topics and made me a better writer and clearer thinker.

Professor and Mooty Chair in Law & Business Paul Vaaler has won a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study and teach in South Africa during the 2019-2020 academic year. Vaaler will join faculties at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Sciences and the University of Limpopo’s School of Economics and Management.

A study of neighborhood change across America recently released by the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity shows that poverty concentration and neighborhood decline are occurring more frequently in American cities than gentrification and displacement of low-income families. It also finds that decline is strongly associated with white flight and concentration of families of color.

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) has recognized the scholarship of two members of the Law Library faculty with prestigious awards.

Please tell us about your Human Rights Lab project. What was the work and what was this experience like for you personally?

3L Alicia Granse won the 2019 Minnesota Women Lawyers Equal Justice Award for her note, "Gun Control and the Color of the Law."

The award, granted for a paper or article on a social justice topic, includes a $1,000 cash prize and recognition at MWL’s 47th annual meeting luncheon on April 26.

Wall Street Journal media reporter Keach Hagey, author of The King of Content: Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire, was the keynote speaker for a day-long conference highlighting the contributions of business book authors held Friday at the Law School.

Retired Brigadier General (USAF) Chester David Taylor Jr. ’52 passed away last month.

General Taylor was born on May 21, 1928 in South St. Paul, Minnesota, and graduated from that high school. He attended the University of Minnesota for both undergraduate and law school. After graduating law school in 1952, he was then commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps. He was on active duty from 1952 to 1981.

Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Natalie Hudson ’82 will be the Law School’s 2019 commencement speaker.

Hudson was appointed to the Minnesota Supreme Court bench on Oct. 26, 2015 by Governor Mark Dayton. She was elected in 2016. She previously served 14 years on the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

When the Innocence Project of Minnesota moved to Mondale Hall on April 1, it was something of a homecoming for IPMN executive director Sara Jones ’88, the second of three generations of Minnesota Law alums. Her father, C. Paul Jones ’50, served as Minnesota’s founding State Public Defender for 25 years and had his main office at the Law School. Her nephew, Curtis Wells, is a member of the Class of ’09. Topping it all off, Jones worked for eight years in the Law School's Advancement Office.