UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY

SCHOOL OF LAW

651 EAST JEFFERSON AVENUE

DETROIT, MICHIGAN 48226

Telephone: (313) 596-0200

URL: http://www.law.udmercy.edu

 

ABA Approved Since 1933

The University of Detroit Mercy School of Law offers a rigorous legal education with a curriculum and programs that emphasize teaching the practical skills of lawyering, ethics, a commitment to public service, and a distinct international approach.

 

Founded in 1912, the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law is the oldest Michigan law school affiliated with a private university, and it shares the Jesuit and Mercy tradition of value oriented education. Degrees offered include a three-year, full-time program and part-time day and evening programs in which students can complete the degree in four or five years. Also offered is a unique, three-year joint degree (J.D./LL.B.) program with the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor, Canada; a J.D./M.B.A. program that requires four years to complete; and a five-year joint degree (J.D./L.D.) program with the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

 

The School’s innovative curriculum integrates theory, doctrine, and practice. In the first year, students participate in the School’s nationally ranked writing program and a newly developed course in which students study various analytical tools and theories in a way that helps them better understand the relationships between the core first-year courses. In the second year, the School’s Writing Across the Curriculum program ensures that students continue to receive designed to transition students to practice. Graduating students participate in either a clinic or externship and take at least two courses in the School’s Law Firm Program, which engages them in portions of a simulated transaction. The School has created a Distinguished Visiting Professor program that brings senior partners from major law firms into the classroom and combines the strengths of traditional legal education with the applied knowledge and skills of training in writing and experience in drafting many forms of legal documents. The final year is experienced lawyers.

 

Both practical skills and a commitment to public service are instilled through a broad clinical program, which includes the Urban Law Clinic, an Immigration Law Clinic, a Veterans Law Clinic, an Environmental Law Clinic, an Appellate Advocacy Clinic, and a Mediation Clinic. Clinical students work in the School’s Mobile Law Office in which students use a specially equipped RV to provide legal services to the disadvantaged in distressed areas of the city. Due to the generosity of General Motors, the School recently acquired a second Mobile Law Office, which enables Veterans Law Clinic participants to travel across the United States as part of UDM Law’s Project SALUTE educating veterans about federal veterans benefits and training pro bono attorneys to assist these veterans.

 

In addition to these clinical opportunities, the School awards Public Interest Fellowships to students to fund their work in unpaid legal positions with non-profit and public-service organizations. As a result of its many public service initiatives, the American Bar Association Student Law Division awarded the School with the 2006 Judy M. Weightman Memorial Public Interest Award, given annually to a law school or individual in recognition of their public interest programming.

 

The School provides a distinct international focus through its unique joint degree programs with the University of Windsor and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM). Students have the option of participating in the Canadian/American joint degree program, the only integrated law program of its kind that enables students to earn in three years a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and the Bachelor of Laws (L.LB) from the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. The School of Law also participates in an exchange program with the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, in which a recent graduate of each school visits the other institution for a year of teaching French or American law. In support of its commitment to better prepare students to practice in a global legal community, the School provides students summer study-abroad stipends to defray travel and accommodation expenses. It also now requires its entering classes to complete at least one course that studies a foreign legal system.

 

Students also have the option of participating in the North American Lawyer Multiple Degree Program, which enables students to earn in five years a Mexican Bachelor of Arts in Law (Licenciado en Derecho or L.D.) from ITESM (which qualifies the recipient to practice law in Mexico) and the Juris Doctor (J.D.) from UDMLaw. Students who want to practice in all three NAFTA countries also will be able to earn a Canadian law degree, by virtue of UDM’s joint American/Canadian law degree program discussed above. Students can obtain all three degrees in six years. And regardless of which course of study these students decide to pursue, they will have the unprecedented opportunity to take up to fourteen Mexican Law courses that will be taught in Spanish at UDM.

 

The School offers a focus on ethical issues in the law through a wide range of programs and activities, including Ethics Across the Curriculum (by which ethical issues are introduced in every course), Professional Responsibility Moot Court Competition, and a Moot Management Committee Competition (in which student teams compete in simulating meetings of law firm management committees’ addressing ethical cases.) It also offers courses in Law and Religion, Canon Law, and Talmudic Law, in order to help students develop their own moral and ethical frameworks.

 

The School’s Law Library, a U.S. government depository, has an extensive collection including federal, state and British Commonwealth materials, as well as records and briefs of cases argued before the Supreme Courts of the U.S. and Michigan. The array of student activities at the School of Law includes Law Review, Moot Court, the American Inns of Court, the Justice Frank Murphy Honor Society, the Black Law Student Association, the St. Thomas More Society, the Student Bar Association, and many other organizations.

 

Graduates of the School of Law sit on the Michigan Supreme Court, the Michigan Court of Appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and other benches throughout Michigan and beyond. Alumni have held major elective offices, including mayor of the City of Detroit, County Commissioner, County Executive, and a host of other executive positions.

 

Dean: Mark C. Gordon (313) 596-0210

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs: Gary Maveal (313) 596-0218

Associate Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs:

Kathleen H. Caprio (313) 596-0287

Financial Aid: Denise Daniel (313) 596-0214

Library: Byron Cooper (313) 596-0240

Assistant Dean of Career Services and Outreach: Open Position

Assistant Dean of Student Services and Registrar:

Loretta Lewins-Peck (313) 596-0212

Assistant Dean of Academic Initiatives: Cara Cunningham (313) 596-9826

 

FULL TIME FACULTY

 

LLOYD A. SEMPLE, (Law Professor), born St. Louis, Missouri, June 7, 1939; admitted to bar, 1965, Michigan. Education: Yale University (B.A., 1961); University of Michigan (J.D., with distinction, 1964). COURSES:Business Organizations, Corporations, Corporate Transactions, Corporate Governance. Email: semplell @ udmercy.edu

 

HOWARD B. ABRAMS, (Law Professor), born Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1940; admitted to bar, 1966, Illinois; 1980, Michigan. Education: University of Michigan (B.A., 1963); University of Chicago (J.D., 1966). COURSES:Copyright, Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property, Secured Transactions. Email:abramshb @ udmercy.edu

 

LAYMAN E. ALLEN, (Law Professor), born Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, June 9, 1927; admitted to bar, 1956, Connecticut. Education: Princeton University (A.B., 1951); Harvard University (M.P.A., 1952); Yale University Law School (J.D., 1956; LL.B., 1956). COURSES: Modern Logic and Law, Legal Interpretation, Contracts. Email: laymanal @ umich.edu

 

GORDON BECKER, (Law Professor), born Memphis, Tennessee, October 22, 1940; admitted to bar, 1966, Vermont; 1969, Michigan. Education: Lawrence College (B.A., 1962); University of Chicago (J.D., 1965). COURSES: Sales. Email: beckerga @ udmercy.edu

 

JULIA BELIAN, (Law Professor), born Rapid City, South Dakota, 1959; admitted to bar, 1996, Minnesota; 2000, California. Education: Southwestern University (B.A., cum laude, 1980); Yale University (M.Div., 1993); Emory University School of Law (J.D., with distinction, 1996). COURSES: Property, Estates and Trusts. Email: belianju @ udmercy.edu

 

BRET BOYCE, (Law Professor), born Bloomington, Indiana, August 23, 1960; admitted to bar, 1995, Maryland. Education: Yale University (B.A., 1992); Brown University (Ph.D., 1989); Northwestern University School of Law (J.D., 1995). COURSES:Property, Comparative Law.

 

J. RICHARD BROUGHTON, (Law Professor), born Huntington, West Virginia, November 15, 1972; admitted to bar, 2000, New Jersey; 2002, Texas. Education: Hampden Sydney College (B.A., 1995); Widener University (J.D., 1999); Georgetown University (LL.M., 2000). COURSES: Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Law.

 

ROBERT NEIL BROWN, (Law Professor), born St. Joseph, Michigan, May 23, 1944; admitted to bar, 1969, Michigan; 1970, District of Columbia. Education: University of Michigan (A.B., 1966; J.D., 1969); George Washington University (LL.M., 1973). COURSES:Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Aging and the Law.

 

MICHAEL C. BRYCE, (Law Professor), Education: Fordham University (B.A., 1972); University of Detroit (J.D., 1977).

 

DAVID G. CHARDAVOYNE, (Law Professor), born Xenia, Ohio, September 10, 1948; admitted to bar, 1976, Michigan. Education: University of Michigan (B.A., 1970); Wayne State University Law School (J.D., 1976). COURSES: Contracts, Estates and Trusts, Remedies, Conflict of Laws, Pre-Trial Litigation, Trial Litigation. Email: chardavoyne @ aol.com

 

CAROL ANNE CLARK, (Law Professor), born Greenwich, Connecticut, November 24, 1946; admitted to bar, 1982, Michigan. Education: University of Connecticut (B.A., with honors, 1968); Michigan State University (M.S., 1969); Wayne State University Law School (J.D., summa cum laude, 1981). COURSES:Business Organizations, Law Firm Program - Core Transaction Course. Email:clarkca2 @ udmercy.edu

 

BYRON D. COOPER, (Law Professor), born Wabash, Indiana, July 13, 1945; admitted to bar, 1977, Indiana. Education: Indiana University (A.B., 1968; M.S., 1973; J.D., 1977; M.L.S., 1978). COURSES:Legal Research, English Legal History.

 

MARGARET A. COSTELLO, (Law Professor), born Scranton, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1952; admitted to bar, 1988, Michigan. Education: Pennsylvania State University (B.S., 1974); Southern Illinois University (M.A., 1976); University of Michigan (M.A., 1977); Wayne State University (1978-1979); Drake University (1980); Detroit College of Law (J.D., 1988); Trinity College (1987). COURSES:Clinical, International, Core Concepts. Email:mcostello @ dykema.com

 

THOMAS J. DENHOLM, (Law Professor), born Midland, Ontario, Canada, April 16, 1965; admitted to bar, 1997, Ontario. Education: Wilfrid Laurier University (B.B.A., 1988); Queen’s University (LL.B., 1995); University of Michigan (LL.M., 2000). COURSES: Applied Legal Theory & Analysis (Legal Writing). Email:tdenholm @ uwindsor.ca

 

LYNN DODGE, (Law Professor), born Detroit, Michigan, September 25, 1960; admitted to bar, 1985, Michigan; 2003, District of Columbia. Education: University of Michigan (B.A., 1982); University of Detroit (J.D., 1985). COURSES:Environmental Law Clinic, Property. Email:dodgelm @ udmercy.edu

 

LAWRENCE DUBIN, (Law Professor), born Detroit, Michigan, March 9, 1943; admitted to bar, 1966, Michigan. Education: University of Michigan (B.A., 1963; J.D., 1966). COURSES:Professional Responsibility, Evidence, Trial Practice, Civil Procedure.

 

LOIS E. FIELDING, (Law Professor), born Waco, Texas, May 19, 1954; admitted to bar, 1980, Texas. Education: Rice University (B.A., 1977); University of Texas (J.D., 1980); University of Virginia (LL.M., 1989). COURSES:International Law, Property, Sales, Consumer Transactions, Commercial Law.

 

BONITA REID GARDNER, (Law Professor), born Gastonia, North Carolina, July 26, 1964; admitted to bar, 1992, Michigan. Education: Wayne State University (B.A., 1988; J.D., 1991). COURSES:Civil Procedure. Email:bonitargg @ yahoo.com

 

JACQUELINE P. HAND, (Law Professor), born Reno, Nevada, August 7, 1946; admitted to bar, 1978, Michigan. Education: St. Mary’s College (B.A., 1968); Northwestern (M.S.J., 1969); Wayne State (J.D., 1978). COURSES:Environmental Law, Estates & Trusts, Land Use Planning, Real Property.

 

CHARISSE L. HEATH, (Law Professor), born Detroit, Michigan, December 19, 1957; admitted to bar, 1984, New York; 2002, Michigan. Education: Yale University (B.A., cum laude, 1980; J.D., 1983). COURSES:Contracts, Uniform Commercial Code. Email:heathcl12 @ udmercy.edu

 

DAVID C. KOELSCH, (Law Professor), born Royal Oak, Michigan, May 16, 1966; admitted to bar, 1994, Illinois; 1998, Michigan. Education: Michigan State University (B.A., 1988); The Catholic University of America (J.D., 1994). COURSES:Immigration Law. Email:koelschdc @ udmercy.edu

 

NICKOLAS J. KYSER, (Law Professor), born Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, August 17, 1946; admitted to bar, 1975, Colorado. Education: Michigan State University (B.A., 1972); University of Michigan (J.D., 1975). COURSES:Federal Taxation.

 

CRISTINA DOUGLAS LOCKWOOD, (Law Professor), born Michigan, July 14, 1966; admitted to bar, 1992, New York; 1992, New Jersey; 1992, Michigan. Education: University of Michigan (A.B., 1988); Wayne State University (J.D., 1991). COURSES: Professional Responsibility. Email:lockwocd @ udmercy.edu

 

LEON J. LYSAGHT, JR., (Law Professor), born Butte, Montana, August 25, 1940; admitted to bar, 1966, Montana. Education: Whitman College (B.A., 1962); University of Chicago (J.D., 1965). COURSES:Contracts, Sale of Goods, Negotiable Instruments, Secured Transactions, Oil and Gas.

 

PAMELA LYSAGHT, (Law Professor), born Detroit, Michigan, September 26, 1952; admitted to bar, 1990, Michigan. Education: University of Michigan (B.G.S., 1984); University of Detroit (J.D., 1990). COURSES:Applied Legal Theory, Analysis. Email: lysaghtp @ udmercy.edu

 

GARY M. MAVEAL, (Law Professor), born Monroe, Michigan, January 13, 1954; admitted to bar, 1982, Michigan. Education: Wayne State University (B.A., 1977); University of Detroit (J.D., 1981). COURSES:Civil Procedure, Evidence and Trial Practice.

 

STEPHEN ANDREW MAZURAK, (Law Professor), born Berkeley, California, October 11, 1944; admitted to bar, 1970, Nebraska; 1971, California; 1996, Michigan. Education: University of Nebraska (B.A., 1967; J.D., 1970). COURSES:Private and Public Sector Labor Law, Employment Discrimination Law, Contracts, Alternative Dispute Resolution. Email:mazuraks @ udmercy.edu

 

ANDREW FOSTER MOORE, (Law Professor), born January 7, 1967; admitted to bar, 1992, Ohio; 1999, Michigan. Education: John Carroll University (B.A., 1989); Case Western Reserve University (J.D. 1992); Columbia University (LL.M., 1998). COURSES: International Law, Human Rights, Immigration Law. Email:mooreaf @ udmercy.edu

 

KAREN MOSS, (Law Professor), born Grosse Pointe, Michigan, February 1, 1966; admitted to bar, 1991, Illinois; 1992, California. Education: University of Michigan (B.B.A., 1988; J.D., 1991); Wayne State University (transferred, 1988-89). COURSES: Employment. Email:mosskj @ udmercy.edu

 

DENNIS ALAN OLSON, (Law Professor), born Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany, May 27, 1959; admitted to bar, 1984, Idaho; 1985, Oregon. Education: Brigham Young University (B.A., 1978; J.D., 1984). COURSES:Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Civil Procedure, Torts.

 

DEBORAH PARUCH, (Law Professor), born Detroit, January 20, 1953; admitted to bar, 1992, Michigan. Education: University of Detroit (B.A., 1974; M.B.A., 1977; J.D., 1992). COURSES: Research and Writing, Children’s Law. Email:paruchd @ udmercy.edu

 

LOGAN ROBINSON, (Law Professor), born Cincinnati, Ohio, December 26, 1949; admitted to bar, 1977, Ohio; 1979, New York; 1989, Michigan. Education: Cornell University (B.A., 1972); Harvard Law School (J.D., 1976). COURSES:Corporate Governance. Email:lrobinson @ udmercy.edu

 

THOMAS L. SAYBOLT, (Law Professor), born Columbus, Ohio, October 26, 1948; admitted to bar, 1974, Michigan; 1981, New York. Education: Fordham University (B.A., 1970; J.D., 1973). COURSES: Business Organizations, NAFTA and International Trade, Comparative Sales, International Business Transactions. Email:saybolt @ udmercy.edu

 

JEFFREY S. SILVER, (Law Professor), born Framingham, Massachusetts, June 19, 1962; admitted to bar, 1999, Illinois; Massachusetts. Education: University of Pennsylvania (B.A., 1984); University of Michigan (M.B.A., 1986, J.D., 1998). COURSES: Tax, Torts, Constitutional Law. Email:silverje @ udmercy.edu

 

JULIE ST. JOHN, (Law Professor), born Canada, July, 1970; admitted to bar, 1999, Ontario, Canada. Education: University of Windsor (B.A., 1994; LL.B., 1997); Wayne State University (LL.M., 2006). COURSES: Legal Writing, Research & Analysis. Email:stjohnjl @ udmercy.edu

 

MICHELLE L. STREICHER, (Law Professor), born Michigan, September 8, 1969; admitted to bar, 1994, Michigan. Education: Michigan State University (B.A., 1991); University of Detroit Mercy (J.D., 1994). COURSES:Applied Legal Theory and Analysis. Email:streicherm @ udmercy.edu

 

JOON H. SUNG, (Law Professor), born Seoul, Korea, November 27, 1969; admitted to bar, 1994, Michigan. Education: University of Michigan (B.A., 1991); Boston College Law School (J.D., 1994). COURSES: Veterans Law, Consumer Law. Email:sungjh @ udmercy.edu

 

TRACY SILVERMAN WEISSMAN, (Law Professor), born Detroit, Michigan, March 13, 1968; admitted to bar, 1993, Michigan. Education: Columbia University (B.A., 1990); University of Michigan Law School (J.D., 1992). COURSES:Legal Research and Writing, Health Care Law. Email:weissmts @ udmercy.edu

 

PAM WILKINS, (Law Professor), born Nashville, Tennessee, January 25, 1968; admitted to bar, 1993, North Carolina (inactive); 1995, South Carolina (inactive). Education: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (A.B., 1989); University of South Carolina School of Law (J.D., 1993). COURSES:Legal Writing, Death Penalty in America.Email:wilkinpa @ udmercy.edu