Jack Smith, Chair of the Board of Directors of University of California Hastings College of the Law, announced the appointment of Nell Jessup Newton as the new Chancellor and Dean of the law school. The new appointment takes effect on August 1, 2006, at which time Mary Kay Kane will step down after 13 years as Chancellor and Dean.
A respected legal scholar in the field of American Indian Law and the editor-in-chief of Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law (2005 edition), Nell Jessup Newton has been Dean and Professor of Law at University of Connecticut School of Law since 2000. Before joining the University of Connecticut, she served as Dean and Professor at University of Denver College of Law (1998-2000) and Professor at American University, Washington College of Law in Washington D.C. (1992-98).
Dean Newton has strong ties to UC Hastings. After graduating from University of California at Berkeley in 1973, she attended UC Hastings College of the Law and graduated (Order of the Coif) in 1976. She returned to Hastings as a Visiting Professor for the school year 1994-95.
Indeed, Professor Newton had the distinct pleasure of teaching me contract law as a first year when she was a Visting Professor at Hastings in '94-95. Details of Professor Newton's ascension are here from U.C. Hastings -- the Nation's Grimmest Law SchoolTM.