Nathan Fishbach Honored—and the Law School, Too

Nathan Fishbach Nathan Fishbach, shareholder at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, received the Eastern District of Wisconsin Bar Association’s Judge Myron L. Gordon Lifetime Achievement Award today. That itself might be worth recording in these annals (cf. Prof. Jessica Slavin’s blog post from two years ago concerning awards by the EDWBA to Michael O’Hear and Tom Shriner). For Nathan has been a member of our Advisory Board and otherwise a great friend of the Law School.

But permit me to note that the Law School was allowed to share in the honor in an important (and lasting) sense. For Nathan’s firm, Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, announced today that it will use the occasion of Nathan’s award to honor him by creating the Nathan Fishbach Student Development Fund at Marquette Law School. My role in this is small (being on the receiving end of a gift or saying “thank you, yes” is easy), but I wish to elaborate on this matter a bit.

Nathan is a highly skilled attorney, with extensive litigation experience on behalf of—and thus demands on his time from—the federal government, commercial interests, and private individuals. Yet even in the press of business, he has struck me with his interest and investment in the future of the profession. An important example of this was his work a decade ago in the founding of the Eastern District of the Wisconsin Bar Association.

Along these same lines, his interest in Marquette Law School has been especially outstanding. A graduate of Villanova Law School, Nathan has been a great champion of our students, speaking to classes, mentoring them individually, and taking the interest—and time—to work with them on their career development.

The Fishbach Fund, created at the Law School by Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, will support our bringing in speakers, from Wisconsin and across the country (indeed, the world), whose experiences and counsel will help future law students gain a greater sense of the profession into which they are entering. It will also provide for programs, workshops, or other opportunities designed to promote a greater integration between Marquette law students and the profession. That we have been historically good at such integration means that this sort of gift should help us reach for greatness.

Thank you to Nathan for being an engaged exemplar over the years, and to the attorneys of Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek for their selecting Marquette Law School as the place to perpetuate Nathan’s honor.

Continue ReadingNathan Fishbach Honored—and the Law School, Too

Rofes Receives Kutulakis Award

AALS Peter RofesIt was a privilege today to attend the lunch of the Section on Student Services at the Association of American Law Schools’ annual meeting. For our colleague, Professor Peter K. Rofes, received the section’s Peter N. Kutulakis Award. This award recognizes the outstanding contributions of an institution, administrator, or law professor in the provision of services to law students. Our Associate Dean for Administration, Bonnie M. Thomson, nominated Professor Rofes for the Kutulakis Award, and Professor Rofes richly deserves it.

Permit me to repeat what I said a year ago concerning Prof. Rofes. The context was my reporting to students, in my beginning-of-semester letter, that Prof. Rofes had elected to return this academic year to full-time faculty duties, in the tradition of the Law School, after lengthy service as director of the part-time program and associate dean for academic affairs. I wished to explain “my thanks and admiration”:

I have been especially impressed by Prof. Rofes’s ability—even while administering the academic program, including determining course offerings, working with full-time and adjunct faculty, overseeing the schedule, and running the Academic Support Program—never to lose sight of the individuals with whom he works and never to fail to make time, for example, for the individual in need of time, attention, or assistance. There is a lesson for you in his work. For your work as a lawyer also will be in support and service of others; indeed, the work of the lawyer inheres most basically in the attention to and care for another. I express at graduation my hope that you have found some models in these, your early days in the profession. You—we—would do well especially to consider the important ways in which Prof. Rofes is an exemplar.

Congratulations, Peter—and thank you.

Continue ReadingRofes Receives Kutulakis Award

Appointment of Russ Feingold

The University has announced today that Russell D. Feingold will join us as Visiting Professor of Law. In addition to noting this announcement, I wish to elaborate briefly upon my decision to appoint Sen. Feingold.

Let me begin with his background. Sen. Feingold is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a former Rhodes Scholar, and an honors law graduate of both Oxford University and Harvard University. He practiced law for six years with two leading Wisconsin law firms, Foley & Lardner and LaFollette & Sinykin. Sen. Feingold served for ten years in the Wisconsin Senate and eighteen years in the United States Senate, with the latter service concluding earlier this week, after his loss in the November election. He is known for his studious approach to the complex issues before the United States Senate, and particularly before the Senate’s select committee on intelligence and committees on the budget, foreign relations, and the judiciary. Sen. Feingold’s expertise and experience in a range of important legal fields will provide the basis for an upper-level elective course, Current Legal Issues: The U.S. Senate, which he will teach in the spring semester at the Law School. In addition to his teaching, Sen. Feingold will be working on a book concerning issues of the day.

On topics ranging from financing of political campaigns to civil liberties in an age of international terrorism to America’s engagement in Afghanistan, Sen. Feingold has been forthright, thoughtful, and independent. While I do not doubt that some of his views are controversial, or, still less, suggest that all of them are right, an institution of legal education is especially well suited to explore multiple dimensions of such issues. Thus, I believe that Sen. Feingold is almost uniquely well-positioned to contribute to discussion of numerous legal issues at Marquette Law School, through both teaching and writing. This is especially so because, throughout my discussions with Sen. Feingold, I was impressed with the commitment and seriousness with which he approached the role of professor. I am grateful that he will be with us for a time. I hope that you will join me in welcoming Professor Feingold.

Continue ReadingAppointment of Russ Feingold
Newer Posts
Older Posts