The Nominating Committee, chaired by The Honorable Rebecca White Berch, Justice (Retired) of the Arizona Supreme Court, presented the following slate to the Council:
Chair (automatic under Section Bylaws)
Jeffrey Lewis
Dean Emeritus and Professor
Saint Louis University School of Law
St. Louis, Missouri
Jeffrey Lewis joined Saint Louis University School of Law as dean in 1999 and served in that capacity for 11 years. He returned to full-time teaching in 2010 with the title of dean emeritus and professor. He began his law teaching career in 1970 at the University of Akron School of Law. He served on the law faculty at the University of Florida from 1972 to 1999, and during his tenure at Florida he served as associate dean for seven years and dean for eight years. Dean Lewis earned both his bachelor’s degree and law degree from Duke University.
Dean Lewis has been active with the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) throughout his career. He previously served on the Council from 1999 to 2004. He also chaired the Accreditation Committee and the Standards Review Committee, served on the AALS Accreditation Committee, and chaired or served as a member of more than 20 ABA/AALS site evaluation teams. Dean Lewis is the current chair-elect of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
Chair-Elect
Election to a One-Year Term
Diane Bosse
Special Counsel
Hurwitz & Fine, P.C.
Buffalo, New York
Diane F. Bosse practices law in Buffalo, New York. She was appointed to the New York State Board of Law Examiners in 1998, and has been its chair since 2001. She served on the Board of Trustees of the National Conference of Bar Examiners from 1999 to 2008 (chair, 2006-2007), and is presently a member of the Conference's Testing Task Force. Ms. Bosse is a past president of the Defense Trial Lawyers of Western New York and a past member of the boards of directors of the Bar Association of Erie County and of the Western New York Trial Lawyers Association.
Prior to serving on the Council, Ms. Bosse served on the Accreditation Committee for six years (2007-2013), including two as committee chair; on the Standards Review Committee for three years (2004-2007); and on the Bar Admissions Committee for two years (2002-2004). Ms. Bosse is an elected member of the American Law Institute. Ms. Bosse received her undergraduate and law degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo and currently serves as the Section’s vice chair.
Vice Chair
Election to a One-Year Term
The Honorable Scott Bales
Chief Justice
Arizona Supreme Court
Phoenix, Arizona
Scott Bales joined the Arizona Supreme Court in 2005 and became Chief Justice in 2014. He regularly teaches courses as an adjunct professor at the law schools at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. He is also a member of the Council of the American Law Institute and formerly served as the chair of the Appellate Judges Conference of the ABA’s Judicial Division and on the board of directors for the Conference of Chief Justices.
Before his appointment to the Court, Justice Bales worked at Lewis and Roca LLP from 2001-2005, served as Arizona’s Solicitor General from 1999-2001, and, was an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1994-1999. He also was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Policy Development and a Special Investigative Counsel for the Justice Department’s Inspector General.
Justice Bales earned a B.A., summa cum laude, from Michigan State University, an M.A. in economics from Harvard University, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review from 1981 to 1983. He also was a Teaching Fellow from 1979 to 1983 at Harvard University and received the Allyn Young Prize for Excellence in Teaching Economics in 1980 and 1981. After graduating from law school, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Judge Joseph T. Sneed III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Members-at-Large
Re-election to a Three-Year Term
Leo Martinez
Professor
University of California, Hastings College of Law
San Francisco, California
Leo Martinez is the Albert Abramson Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He served as UC Hastings’ academic dean for twelve years and he served as the acting chancellor and dean of the college in the 2009-2010 academic year.
Professor Martinez is a past president of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). He has chaired or served on more than two-dozen ABA law school site evaluation visits and he has assisted ten law schools in their strategic planning. He is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI); he is one of the academic advisers on the ALI’s Principles of the Law of Liability Insurance project, and he was a member of the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education.
Outside of academia, Professor Martinez has chaired the boards of four different non-profit organizations including KQED, Inc.; Public Advocates, Inc.; the St. Francis Hospital Foundation; and Public Media Company. He is a member of the board of CollegeTrack, a Bay Area-based organization that provides mentoring for high school students living in low-income and underserved areas and he is a member of the University of Kansas Chancellor’s Club Advisory Board.
Professor Martinez is a co-author of a leading insurance law casebook, a co-editor of a four-volume insurance treatise, and the author of many articles on tax, insurance law, and legal education that have appeared in journals including the Stanford Law Review, Tulane Law Review, Yale Law and Policy Review, and the China EU Law Journal.
Charles Ray Nash, Ed.D
Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs
The University of Alabama System
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Charles R. Nash has served as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for The University of Alabama System since 1992. As the senior academic officer in the System, he is the chief liaison to academic, institutional research, and planning officials at The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville. He advises the Chancellor on all academic policy matters and provides primary leadership in program planning, development, and review. Additionally, he is the liaison officer for the UA System to the Alabama Department of Education, the Alabama Community College System, and the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. In 2009, his duties were expanded to include Student Affairs functions for The University of Alabama System.
Dr. Nash holds a bachelor’s degree from Jackson (Mississippi) State University, a master’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, and a doctoral degree from Mississippi State University; and has studied at Southeastern Louisiana (graduate study), Stanford University (distance learning), Harvard University (Institute for Education Management), and the Oxford Roundtable.
Prior to assuming his current position, Dr. Nash served as Associate Executive Director (Vice President) for the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. He has also held the position of Dean of the School of Education at Armstrong Atlantic State University (Georgia) and Director of Special Studies and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Development for the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. He began his career teaching junior high school science and served as a high school assistant principal and as an elementary school principal.
Dr. Nash completed a six-year term on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and served on the executive committee of the National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions. He serves on the Alabama Articulation and General Studies Committee, the Access to Justice Commission of the Alabama Supreme Court, the governing board of the A+Education Partnership of Alabama, and the New York Academy of Sciences/SUNY STEM Advisory Committee. For the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, he has served on the Accreditation Committee (AC), the Council, and the AC’s Foreign Programs subcommittee and the Non-JD subcommittee as Chairman.
In 2009, Dr. Nash was inducted into the McComb, Mississippi High School Hall of Fame and was chosen as Citizen of the Year in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. In 2010, he was named a Pillar of the Community of West Alabama. He was presented the first Friend of the Alabama Mathematics, Science, and Technology Initiative Award and the NASA Public Service Group Achievement Award. In September 2013, Nash was inducted into the Tuscaloosa County Civic Hall of Fame.
Charles has also served as the President of the Rotary Club of Tuscaloosa, the United Way of West Alabama, the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, Vice President and Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Black Warrior Council of Boys Scouts of America, Chairman of the APLU Chief Academic Officers Council, Chairman of the Alabama Council of University of Chief Academic Officers, Chairman of the National Council of University System Chief Academic Officers, etc.
The Honorable Mary R. Russell
Judge
Supreme Court of Missouri
Jefferson City, Missouri
Mary R. Russell, a seventh-generation Missourian, is a judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri. She was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2004 and served a two-year term as chief justice from July 2013 through June 2015. Justice Russell was raised on a dairy farm in Ralls County, near Hannibal and was educated in the Hannibal public schools. She attended Truman State University, graduating summa cum laude with both a bachelor of science and a bachelor of arts. She earned a J.D. from the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Law.
Upon graduation from law school, Justice Russell clerked for the Honorable George Gunn of the Supreme Court of Missouri. She then practiced law in Hannibal with the law firm of Clayton and Rhodes until her appointment to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, in 1995. At the court of appeals, she served as chief judge from 1999 to 2000. She was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2004.
Justice Russell is active in many professional and legal organizations around the state and country, including the Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline of Judges; Missouri Lawyers Trust Account Foundation; a commission to select a federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri in 1993; House of Delegates to the American Bar Association; Young Lawyers Council of The Missouri Bar; numerous Missouri Bar committees; the Missouri Press-Bar Commission; and the Supreme Court Civil Rules Committee and Appellate Practice Committee. She is a past co-chair of the Appellate Practice Committee of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (BAMSL) and has served as chair on other committees in BAMSL.
She also has served on a variety of statewide boards and commissions including the board of governors of Truman State University (president, 1996), Missouri State Senate Reapportionment Commission in 1991, the Missouri Council on Women’s Economic Development, and the Missouri Job Development and Training Council.
Justice Russell is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Women’s Justice Award, the Faculty/Alumni Award from University of Missouri–Columbia, the Citation of Merit Award from the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Law, the Distinguished Alumni Award–Truman State University, the Legal Services of Eastern Missouri Equal Justice Award, the Lasting Legacy award from Missouri CASA, the Soroptomist International Women Helping Women Award, the Jefferson City Rotarian of the Year, Zonta Woman of Achievement in Jefferson City, the Matthews-Dickey Boys & Girls Club Appreciation Award and the Kirkwood Citizen of the Year. She is also named in the 2015 Ingram’s 50 Missourians You Should Know. She is a Henry Toll Fellow, a member of the Missouri Academy of Squires and a member of the Rollins Society of the University of Missouri.
Election to a Three-Year Term
Pamela Lysaght
Glen Arbor, Michigan
Pamela Lysaght retired in 2015 from the faculty at University of Detroit Mercy School of Law where she was the inaugural director of the Applied Legal Theory and Analysis Program and was instrumental in designing the law school’s Writing Across the Curriculum Program. She co-chaired the Curriculum, Strategic Planning, and Assessment Committee for nearly a decade, and she served one year as associate dean for academic affairs. She received the law school’s James T. Barnes, Sr. Memorial Faculty Scholar Award in 2003 for demonstrated excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service. Ms. Lysaght received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan with Distinction and her J.D. from the University of Detroit. While in law school, she was a member of the Law Review and the Moot Court Board of Directors.
A recognized expert in the legal writing and research field, Ms. Lysaght is the co-author of Michigan Legal Research (three editions) and Successful Legal Analysis and Writing: The Fundamentals (four editions), the co-creator and a co-author of CiteStation, and a contributor to the Sourcebook on Legal Writing Programs (2d edition). Additionally, she has published articles in the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. Ms. Lysaght is a member of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, serving as president in 2000-2001, and the Legal Writing Institute. She served on the editorial board of the Journal of the Legal Writing Institute from 2008-2016. In 2004, she was awarded the Thomas F. Blackwell Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal Writing by the governing boards of the Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute.
Within the Section, Ms. Lysaght currently serves as Chair of the Standards Review Committee, and she served on the Accreditation Committee from 2010-2016, including one year as vice chair (2015-2016). She has chaired, or served on, several ABA site evaluation teams and is a former member of the ABA Communication Skills Committee. In addition to her work for the Section, Ms. Lysaght is a member of the Glen Arbor Township Planning Commission, the Glen Arbor Zoning Board of Appeals, and the Glen Arbor Art Center Board of Directors.
Daniel R. Thies
Associate
Sidley Austin LLP
Chicago, Illinois
Daniel R. Thies is a litigation associate in Sidley Austin LLP’s Insurance and Financial Services group. His practice focuses on insurance and financial services class action defense, reinsurance litigation, and commercial litigation and disputes.
Mr. Thies has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the John Marshall Law School, teaching Intellectual Property Trial Advocacy. He is a member of the Accreditation Committee of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and has served on the Section Council previously as the Law Student Member (2008-10) and as the Liaison from the Young Lawyers Division (2013-2016). He has served as the Reporter for the 2009–2010 ABA Presidential Commission on the Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Profession and Legal Needs, and as the Reporter for the 2012–2013 Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) Special Committee on the Impact of Law School Debt on the Delivery of Legal Service. He has also represented Illinois as a delegate in the ABA Young Lawyers Division Assembly.
Mr. Thies is a member of the ISBA’s Federal Civil Practice Section Council and the Young Lawyers Division Council, and served as Chair of the ISBA Standing Committee on Legal Education, Admission, & Competence in 2016-17.
Prior to joining Sidley Austin LLP, Mr. Thies clerked for Chief Judge James F. Holderman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (2011–2013) and for Judge Jerry Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (2010–2011).
Mr. Thies holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Rebecca Hanner White (Retired)
Dean and Professor
The University of Georgia School of Law
Athens, Georgia
Rebecca Hanner White, Dean and J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Georgia School of Law, served as dean of the law school from 2003 until 2015. Previously, she served as associate provost and associate vice president of academic affairs for UGA. She specializes in the areas of labor law, employment discrimination, employment law and labor arbitration. White retired from the law school on May 31, 2016.
White's scholarship, cited by federal and state courts across the country, includes numerous articles and books on employment discrimination and labor law. In 2000, White received the Josiah Meigs Award, UGA's highest honor for teaching excellence. She was selected by law students six times as the recipient of the Faculty Book Award for Excellence in Teaching and received the John C. O'Byrne Memorial Award for Contributions Furthering Student-Faculty Relations. She served as a UGA Senior Teaching Fellow in 2000-01 and was inducted into UGA's Teaching Academy. In 2002, she was selected as a Senior Faculty Fellow for the university's Foundation Fellows program. In 2015, she received both the law school’s Distinguished Service Scroll Award and the University of Georgia Alumni Association’s Faculty Service award. She served on the ABA’s Section of Legal Education’s Accreditation Committee from August 2011 until August 2016, chairing the Committee during her last 2 years of service.
White earned her undergraduate degree from Eastern Kentucky University and graduated first in her class from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the Kentucky Law Journal. She served as a judicial law clerk to Chief Judge George C. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, then practiced labor and employment law at the law firm Dinsmore & Shohl in Cincinnati, Ohio before beginning her teaching career at UGA.
Election to a Two-Year Term
Gregory G. Murphy
Billings, Montana
Gregory Murphy has been practicing law in Montana for more than 37 years. After being awarded a B.A. with high honors at the University of Montana, he earned a J.D. at Notre Dame Law School where he was a Thomas and Alberta White Scholar and served as associate editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. After graduation, he served a law clerkship with the Honorable John F. Kilkenny of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit before returning to Montana to practice law where he enjoys the highest peer review ratings.
Mr. Murphy has long been active in bar admissions and legal education. He has served as chair of the Montana Board of Bar Examiners, chair of the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), chair of the Multistate Bar Examination Committee, and chair of the Uniform Bar Examination Committee. For approximately a decade he served on the Multistate Performance Test Drafting Committee. He has served on and chaired numerous other committees and boards. Mr. Murphy was elected to the Council in 2010, served as vice chair from 2014 to 2015, chair-elect from 2015 to 2016 and chair from 2016 to 2017. He currently serves on the Section Council as Immediate Past Chair. Mr. Murphy’s service to the Section also includes a term as chair of the Accreditation Committee. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute and has received numerous awards for his leadership and service in bar admissions and his community.
Section Representative to the ABA House of Delegates
Re-election to a Three-Year Term
The Honorable Solomon Oliver, Jr.
Judge
U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Judge Oliver was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and served as chief judge from 2010 to 2017. Judge Oliver holds a B.A. from the College of Wooster, an M.A. in political science from Case Western Reserve University, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. From 1975 to 1976, Judge Oliver was a law clerk for the late Judge William H. Hastie of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Oliver was an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio, where he served as chief of the Civil Division and chief of appellate litigation. From 1982 to 1994, he was a professor at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and served as associate dean from 1991 to 1994.
He is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Wooster and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the New York University Black, Latino, Asian Pacific American Law Alumni Association. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Bar Foundation, and the board of trustees of the College of Wooster. Judge Oliver has served on the Judicial Conference of the United States, and is currently a member of its Civil Rules Advisory Committee. He was a member of the Section's Council from 1996 to 2005 and from 2011 to 2015, including a term as chair in 2013-2014. He has also served on the Accreditation Committee, the Standards Review Committee and numerous site visit teams. Judge Oliver previously served as co-chair of the ABA Section of Litigation’s Minority Trial Lawyer Committee.
Law Student Division Member
Election to a One-Year Term
Sarah Correll
Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
JD Expected May 2019
Sarah Correll is a law student at Indiana University’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law where she serves as an editor for the Indiana Law Review, research assistant for the Agricultural Law Program, and a student recruitment assistant. Ms. Correll also serves as a fellow for the Program on Law and State Government, a volunteer for the Student Outreach Clinic, and a graduate student representative for the Student Development Funding Committee.
Ms. Correll earned a B.S. in Agricultural Economics with Highest Distinction from Purdue University in 2016, where she served as the speaker at the University’s Commencement Ceremony. During her time at Purdue, she served on the Student Government and Student Fee Advisory Committee and was the only student member of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.
Ms. Correll’s past work experience includes serving as a government relations intern at Indiana University, legal extern for the office of Congresswoman Susan Brooks, and a judicial extern for Chief Justice Rush of the Indiana Supreme Court.
The election of Council officers and members will take place at the Section’s annual business meeting, Saturday, August 4, at the InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile Hotel during the ABA Annual Meeting.
One or more additional nominations may be made for any designated seat on the Council, including officers of the Council (except Chairperson and Immediate Past Chairperson), by petition signed by not less than 50 members of the Section in good standing, not more than 10 of whom are residents of any one state. A person so nominated shall be called the "petitioner". The petition shall specify which nominee the petitioner is challenging and shall state that the petitioner has agreed to the nomination and meets the criteria for the position being sought. The petition shall be delivered in person or by mail to the Section Office at the Association headquarters and must be received no later than July 15. The Secretary shall thereupon confirm that such individual is eligible to serve if elected. If additional nominations are made, the Chairperson shall distribute to the membership a final notice of nominations as soon as practical, but no later than July 22.