Mitchell Hamline School of Law is awarding several endowed faculty chairs, some newly funded, to its professors. The school has also laid out a plan for awarding a first-ever professorship that provides resources for conducting empirical research in the law.
“We have benefited enormously from the vision, commitment, and support of our alumni, who over the past five years have created nine new endowed faculty positions,” said Mark Gordon, Mitchell Hamline president and dean and holder of the Stephen B. and Lisa S. Bonner Distinguished Chair. “These positions are not only an encouragement and recognition of the outstanding work of our faculty but provide resources for them to advance their scholarship, outreach, and teaching.”
Thanks to the generosity of alumni, friends, and law firms during past campaigns, the combined law school currently has 13 endowed faculty positions.
The John H. Faricy Jr. Professorship for Empirical Research in the Law, created in 2014 by John H. Faricy Jr. ’82, is intended to provide professors with resources to do research and test theories and legal practices using quantitative techniques. Faculty can submit research proposals by the end of April 2016, and the selection of the first Faricy Professor will be made by Dean Gordon and announced in May.
“We often proceed in the practice of law and in life with biases until research shows us otherwise,” said Faricy in establishing the professorship. “Empirical scholarship can help us test our biases and better understand what our laws and the practice of law should be.” Faricy is the founder of Minneapolis-based Faricy Law Firm P.A.
Professor Michael Steenson (L), and Professor Jonathan Kahn (R).
In addition, professor Michael Steenson, who has served on the faculty since 1972, will be the first holder of the Bell Distinguished Professorship. The newly funded endowment will recognize and honor the work of the faculty adviser to the Law Review, one of the most cited journals in the U.S.
The Distinguished Professorship was established by Larry ‘79 and Christine Bell to recognize the commitment and work of professor Steenson, who founded the Law Review in 1974 and has served as the adviser for more than three decades. Larry helped lead Volumes 3 and 4 of the Mitchell Law Review and went on to become senior vice president and general counsel of Ecolab, a global corporation that he served for 31 years, and to serve on the school’s Board of Trustees.
Professor Jonathan Kahn, who teaches constitutional law, torts, health law, and bioethics, has been awarded the James E. Kelley Chair in Tort Law, created by James E. and Margaret H. Kelley in 1966. It’s believed to be the first endowed chair at a law school in Minnesota. Jim Kelley graduated from the school in 1917 and, after a successful trial practice, went on to become general counsel of Hamm Brewing Company and to serve on the school’s Board of Trustees.
The chairs are the first to be awarded since William Mitchell School of Law and Hamline University School of Law combined in late 2015 to create Mitchell Hamline. The law school, drawing on a combined history of more than 150 years, provides a legal education grounded in legal theory and distinguished by exceptional practical legal training. Today, it offers more enrollment options than any other law school in the country, including an accredited on-campus, online hybrid J.D. program.