Dean Nussbaumer is a professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School and the Associate Dean in charge of Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus. He is a 1976 honors graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.
Before joining the Thomas Cooley faculty in 1984, he served as a law clerk to former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary S. Coleman, and as an assistant public defender for the State Appellate Defender Office. While at the Appellate Defender Office, he successfully argued cases before the Michigan Court of Appeals, the Michigan Supreme Court, the Sixth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
Since then he has served as the Reporter for the Michigan Criminal Jury Instruction Committee, Co-Reporter for the Sixth Circuit Pattern Federal Criminal Jury Instruction Committee, member of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education Diversity Committee, and Chair of the Oakland County Bar Association Diversity Committee.
He currently serves as a gubernatorial appointee to the Michigan Appellate Defender Commission, a Michigan Supreme Court appointee to the Michigan Criminal Procedure Rules Committee, an ABA Presidential appointee to the ABA Council on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline, Co-Chair of the Eastern District of Michigan Federal Bar Association Pro Bono Committee, member of the State Bar of Michigan Equal Access Initiative, member of the State Bar of Michigan ADR Diversity Task Force, member of the State Bar of Michigan Pro Bono Month Planning Committee, member of Chief Justice Marilyn Kelly’s SOS Task Force on Self-Represented Litigants, member of the Oakland County Bar Association Inn of Court, member of the Michigan Campaign for Justice Public Defender Reform Initiative, an elected executive board member of the Federal Bar Association, and an elected board member of the Straker Bar Association.
He is a pro bono volunteer for Cooley Law School’s Service-to-Soldiers and Senior Pro Bono Outreach programs, and helped then State Bar President Edward H. Pappas launch the first ever State Bar Professionalism Orientation program in May 2009 at Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus.
He has written extensively on the subject of misuse and over-reliance on the LSAT in law school admissions and accreditation practices, including Misuse of the Law School Admissions Test, Racial Discrimination, and the De Facto Quota System for Restricting African-American Access to the Legal Profession, 80 St. John’s Law Review 167 (Winter 2006), and The Disturbing Correlation Between ABA Accreditation Review and Declining African-American Law School Enrollment, 80 St. John’s Law Review 991 (Summer 2006). His latest article, titled The Door to Law School, will be co-authored with Cooley Professor E. Christopher Johnson, Jr., and is forthcoming.
He has presented his research findings on this subject at the National Bar Association’s 2006 and 2007 National Conventions, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 2007 Legislative Conference, the American Constitution Society’s 2007 National Press Club briefing, the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Schools, the 2009 St. John’s University Law School Symposium, the 2010 ABA Annual Meeting, and the 2010 National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference. He has been quoted on this subject in the New York Times, USA Today, and Michigan Lawyers Weekly.
He has helped develop high school law-related education programs at Pontiac Northern High School and Pontiac High School, helped launch the first ABA Council of Legal Education Opportunity Sophomore Summer Institute in Michigan, and has spoken on law-related education programs at the State Bar of Michigan’s 2010 Bar Leadership Forum on Mackinac Island.
He is the recipient of the National Bar Association’s 2007 Presidential Award, the ABA Council of Legal Education Opportunity 2008 Legacy Justice Academia Achievement Award, and the 2010 State Bar of Michigan Champion of Justice Award. He is the fourth Cooley Law School recipient of a major State Bar of Michigan Award, following E. Christopher Johnson, Jr. (2009 Champion of Justice Award ), Joan Vestrand (2008 Champion of Justice Award), and Nelson Miller (2005 John W. Cummiskey Pro Bono Award).
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