3 finalists selected for dean position at College of Law

A search committee has identified three candidates for dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law, and these finalists have been invited to campus late in March and early in April for a series of on-campus interviews.

The candidates are Irma S. Russell, University of Tulsa College of Law; Gary J. Simson, Case Western Reserve University School of Law; and William Murray Tabb, University of Oklahoma College of Law. Steven Willborn, Nebraska law dean since 2000, has announced his intention to step back in to a faculty role at the law college this summer.

Russell is National Energy-Environment Law and Policy Institute professor of law at Tulsa, as well as a visiting professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. She will be a visiting professor this summer at Lewis and Clark School of Law in Portland, Ore. Russell earned two bachelor's degrees (liberal arts and education) and a master's (English literature) and her J.D. (in 1980), all at Kansas. She clerked for Judge James K. Logan at the 10th U.S. Court of Appeals; practiced law in Kansas City and Memphis; and taught at Kansas Law School and University of Memphis School of Law, University of San Diego School of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Pace University, St. Mary's Law School Innsbruck Institute, University of San Diego School of Law International Institute, and Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at University of Memphis. She will be on campus April 1-3.

Simson holds the title Joseph C. Hostetler-Baker and Hostetler professor of law at Case Western Reserve. He was educated at Yale College and Yale Law School, earning his juris doctorate in 1974. He was editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Colby Townsend Memorial Prize. He was law clerk to Judge J. Joseph Smith on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and was an assistant professor and professor at University of Texas School of Law. His other law school positions have been with Cornell Law School (visiting professor), University of California, Berkeley School of Law (visiting professor), associate dean for faculty development, and faculty affairs, and professor of law at Cornell Law School. He has been at Case Western since 2006. He has taught conflict of laws, constitutional law and First Amendment religion clauses seminars. He will be on campus March 30-April 1.

Tabb is associate dean of academic affairs and deputy director of the Law Center at University of Oklahoma College of Law, where he also has previously been associate dean for students, associate dean for external relations, director of the Oxford University Program and director of the Department of Justice internship program. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees (English literature) at University of Arkansas, and received his J.D. at University of Arkansas School of Law (1982), and an LLM at University of Illinois College of Law, finishing first in his class. His primary subjects are remedies, torts, contracts and environmental law. He will be on campus April 6-8.