Susan Poser received the Outstanding Contributor to Women in the Law Award from the Nebraska State Bar Association this week at the annual bar meeting. Mary Wenzel, chair of the Women and the Law section, presented the award to Poser.
This award, presented annually by the Women and the Law Section of the Nebraska State Bar Association, recognizes the lifelong accomplishments of an individual who has directly contributed to the active integration and participation of women in the Nebraska system of justice as attorneys, judges and scholars.
Poser, dean of the College of Law, received her bachelor's degree in ancient Greek and political science from Swarthmore College and her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2000, Poser received a doctorate in the jurisprudence and social policy program from the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation focused on the remedial phase of desegregation litigation.
After law school, Poser was a law clerk to Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She practiced law in Philadelphia and was the Zicklin Fellow in Ethics in the Legal Studies Department of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In spring 2004, Poser was a visiting professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law.
Poser's research interests include professional responsibility, with a focus on multijurisdictional and multidisciplinary practice. She has written and spoken widely on these issues. In 2003, she served as reporter to the Nebraska State Bar Association committee that reviewed the model rules of professional conduct and proposed their adoption in Nebraska. In 2004, Poser became the director of the Robert J. Kutak Center for the Teaching and Study of Applied Ethics. She has also published articles on Tort law and has participated in empirical research and scholarship on the effects of Tort rules.
Poser has been a member of the Women's and Gender Studies Faculty, the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women, and served as chair of the NU Systemwide Gender Equity Committee. She is a member of the Pennsylvania and Nebraska bars and serves on the ethics committee of the Nebraska State Bar Association. In 2002, she was appointed by the Nebraska Supreme Court to the District One Committee on Inquiry, which reviews disciplinary complaints against Nebraska attorneys. She has served as a member of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and the national board of directors of the ACLU.
In 2003, Poser was awarded the Law College Distinguished Teacher award. In 2004 she was elected to the American Law Institute and in 2006 she received the Shining Light Award from the Nebraska State Bar Foundation.
From 2007 to 2010, she was chief of staff and associate to the chancellor at UNL. She was selected dean of the College of Law in May 2010.