Stanton N. Beeder Adjunct Law Professor
Stan is general counsel at Hausmann Construction, Inc. In that position, he supports the executive team in contract negotiations, handling disputes, advising and administering insurance and surety claims, and provides business advice and representation on a wide range of matters affecting the company, including litigation, arbitration and mediation.
He was previously partner at Cline, Williams, Wright, Johnson & Oldfather, LLP, where his practice focused on litigation, negotiations, and transactions at the administrative, business, insurance and regulatory levels as well as providing business and personal advice on a variety of matters involving the government.
Stan graduated from the University of Nebraska in 2001 with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Nebraska in 2004, with high distinction, and was Order of the Coif.
He prides himself on being very engaged in the Lincoln and Omaha communities where he is an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law, sits on the Executive Counsel of Lincoln YPG, is the President of the Heartland Big Brothers Big Sisters board of directors, teaches Junior Achievement, is a member of the Lancaster County Indigent Defense Advisory Committee, and is a founding member of 100s of Lincoln Men Who Care.
Eric Berger Earl Dunlap Distinguished Professor of Law
Professor Eric Berger joined the faculty in 2007. He received his B.A. with Honors in History from Brown University, and his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Kent Scholar and an Articles Editor on the Columbia Law Review. After law school, Professor Berger clerked for the Honorable Merrick B. Garland on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He then practiced in Jenner & Block's Washington, D.C. office, where he worked on litigation in several state and federal trial and appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Professor Berger's matters there included cases involving lethal injection, same-sex marriage, the detention of foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay, and internet obscenity.
Professor Berger teaches Constitutional Law I (structure), Constitutional Law II (rights), Constitutional History, Federal Courts, First Amendment, and Statutory Interpretation. He also teaches a class for undergraduates on Legislation and Regulation. He has been voted Professor of the Year by the upperclass law students seven times. He has also received the College Distinguished Teaching Award (in 2010), the Law Alumni Council Distinguished Faculty Award (in 2018), and the John H. Binning Award for Excellence (in 2019).
Professor Berger's scholarship focuses on constitutional law. Much of his work explores judicial decision making in constitutional cases, with special attention to deference, fact finding, rhetorical strategies, and other under-theorized factors that help shape judicial opinions in constitutional cases. His article Individual Rights, Judicial Deference, and Administrative Law Norms in Constitutional Decision Making, 91 B.U. L. REV. 2029 (2011), was named the 2011 winner of the American Constitution Society's Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition on Regulatory and Administrative Law. Professor Berger has also written extensively about lethal injection litigation.
Professor Berger has testified in the Nebraska legislature about a variety of constitutional issues, including free speech, lethal injection, and the process for amending the U.S. Constitution. He is also the faculty advisor to the Law College's chapter of the American Constitution Society and to the Community Legal Education Project, which sends law students into Lincoln schools and community centers to teach about the Constitution.
Professor Berger has also published two video lecture courses about constitutional law with Wondrium (also known as The Great Courses). The first, Law School for Everyone: Constitutional Law (2019), is a twelve lecture course introducing some of the topics and questions students would encounter in an introductory class on constitutional law. The second, The Constitution Through U.S. History (2022), is a twenty-four lecture course exploring the role of constitutional issues in American political, social, and cultural history from the founding to the present.
Professor Berger served as Associate Dean for Faculty from 2016 to 2020.
Watch how Professor Berger examines lethal injection.
Richard F. Duncan Sherman S. Welpton, Jr. Professor of Law and Warren R. Wise Professor of Law
Professor Duncan joined the faculty in 1979. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in 1973. In 1976, he received his J.D. degree from the Cornell Law School, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Cornell Law Review. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1977. From 1976-79, he was associated with White & Case, a New York City law firm. Professor Duncan teaches Property, Constitutional Law, and First Amendment. He is a passionate and enthusiastic classroom teacher, whose style is not so much Socratic Dialogue as Socratic Performance Art. He spends most of his passion and energy teaching, writing, and speaking about social justice issues such as the right-to-life, religious liberty, freedom of speech, the pursuit of happiness, and other inalienable rights and liberties. He has spoken and debated at nearly 100 law schools on numerous issues concerning social justice and constitutional law. He loves teaching at Nebraska Law, especially in Room 113 which he claims to own by adverse possession. His favorite legal idea is “first come rights, then comes government to secure those rights.”
Here is a link to Professor Duncan's video CLE for the 2020 Nebraska Bar Annual Meeting on The Masks of the Law from Slavery to Abortion: https://use.vg/jQuD5e and here is a link to his CLE on Compelled Speech from "salute the flag" to "bake the cake": https://use.vg/rqmKFE
Professor Duncan lived for many years on a country road in rural Nebraska. He currently resides in South Lincoln. He and his wife, Kelly, have five children (Casey, Joshua, Rebecca Joy, Hannah Grace, and Kathleen Noel) and three grandchildren. His activities outside law include following professional baseball and hockey, weightlifting (especially going heavy on the incline bench press), and attending theatrical productions on Broadway. He has seen Hamilton: An American Musical 11 times (including twice on Broadway with the original cast). He is a member of the Federalist Society and, much more importantly, of Country Bible Church in Bennet, Nebraska.
Sydney Hayes Lecturer, Assistant Director of the First Amendment Clinic
Sydney Hayes joined the faculty in 2023 as the Assistant Director of the First Amendment Clinic. Prior to joining the University, she was a commercial litigation and alternative dispute resolution associate at Husch Blackwell in Omaha, Nebraska. She has experience in litigation involving complex constitutional issues and business disputes, among others. In addition to her work with the University she continues to practice at the Law Office of Daniel Gutman. Her practice focuses on civil rights, election, and ballot initiative issues.
Sydney received bachelors of arts degrees in Political Science and Criminal Justice from the University of South Dakota. She graduated with highest distinction and Order of the Coif from the University of Nebraska College of Law.
Danielle C. Jefferis Assistant Professor of Law
Professor Jefferis’s research focuses on theories of punishment and the law and policy governing prison and detention, with an emphasis on the for-profit prison industry and immigration-related confinement. She takes both critical and comparative approaches to her work, looking at carceral systems, practices, and theories around the world. Professor Jefferis has presented her research at Harvard Law School, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Denver College of Law, Loyola University School of Law, Louisiana State University Law, the Australian National University, London University, Amsterdam Law School, the University of Lisbon, and Leiden University, among others. She has provided expert commentary on prison and detention issues for national and international media outlets, including VICE, Mother Jones, and NowThis, and has been solicited as an amicus curiae for cases involving prison law and prisoners’ rights in courts around the country.
Professor Jefferis’s scholarship is informed by her unique teaching and practice experience, which lie at the intersection of constitutional law and prisoners’ rights, immigration law, and federal courts. She has extensive civil rights litigation experience and has represented plaintiffs in federal courts across the country, including in the United States Supreme Court. She has taken several cases to trial and successfully litigated numerous appeals. In 2018, she was a member of a team of clinic faculty and student attorneys that successfully challenged the constitutionality of a federal prisoner’s convictions, resulting in his release from prison. One of her most memorable moments as an attorney and teacher was witnessing her client reunite with his family after being separated from them for more than a decade.
Prior to joining the Nebraska Law faculty, Professor Jefferis taught at California Western School of Law in San Diego and in the Civil Rights Clinic at the University of Denver College of Law. Before entering academia, she was the Nadine Strossen Fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project in New York and an associate attorney with a boutique civil rights firm in Colorado. Professor Jefferis also clerked for the now-retired Honorable Gale T. Miller of the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Kyle Langvardt Assistant Professor of Law
Professor Kyle Langvardt joined the faculty in July 2020 as a member of the Nebraska Technology & Governance Center. He is a First Amendment scholar who focuses on the Internet’s implications for free expression both as a matter of constitutional doctrine and as a practical reality. His written work addresses new and confounding policy issues including tech addiction, the collapse of traditional gatekeepers in online media and 3D-printable weapons. Professor Langvardt’s most recent papers appear in the Georgetown Law Journal, the Fordham Law Review and the George Mason Law Review.
Professor Langvardt received his B.A. in Philosophy from Earlham College, where he graduated with College and Departmental Honors, and he received his J.D. from the University of Chicago School of Law. After law school, Professor Langvardt practiced at the Chicago, Illinois office of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP (now Locke Lord LLP). He went on to teach as a lecturer in the Department of Business Law at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, and later as a professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, where he received James T. Barnes, Sr. Memorial Faculty Scholar Award in 2019.
Watch to see how Professor Langvardt is helping to regulate speech in the 21st Century.
Josephine (Jo) R. Potuto Richard H. Larson Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus
Professor Potuto joined the faculty in 1974. She currently teaches Federal Jurisdiction, Constitutional Law, Sports Law, and Criminal Procedure. She also maintains a special interest in Conflict of Laws and Appellate Advocacy and, among other courses, has taught Mass Communications, Civil Procedure, Contract and Criminal Law. In 2003 Potuto received the Nebraska Alumni Outstanding Faculty Award.
Professor Potuto is the author of three books – Prisoner Collateral Attacks: Habeas Corpus and Federal Prisoner Motion Practice; Winning Appeals; and Federal Criminal Jury Instructions (co-authored with Perlman and Saltzburg). She has authored numerous articles focused on issues in criminal procedure, federal jurisdiction, and intercollegiate athletics. She is a member of the American Law Institute, the Nebraska State Bar Foundation (and a recipient of its Shining Light Award), and the Douglass Society, the College's "highest honor for its most distinguished graduates." In Spring 2012, Potuto delivered the Chancellor's Distinguished Lecture. Selection as the Chancellor's Distinguished Lecturer is the "highest recognition the Research Council can bestow on an individual faculty member." Lectures are "high profile public events that celebrate significant achievements and contributions made by faculty."
Professor Potuto is a past member of the Federal Practice Committee of the Federal District Court, District of Nebraska; the Nebraska Crime Commission; and the Robert Van Pelt American Inns of Court (Master in the Brandeis Inn). She has been a visiting professor at the law colleges of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Oregon, Arizona, Seton Hall, Rutgers, and Cardozo. She was the project director and a reporter for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) Model Sentencing and Corrections Act. She was the reporter for the Nebraska Supreme Court project to create model jury instructions for cases. She was an advisor on the NCCUSL Uniform Collegiate Agents Act. She was a consultant and hearing officer for the Nebraska Racing Commission.
Professor Potuto is the Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is the immediate past president of the 1A Faculty Athletics Representatives. She currently serves on the 1A FAR executive committee. She represents the University on NCAA committees and is a member of the governance groups of the Big Ten Conference. Professor Potuto is the sole FAR serving on the NCAA Interpretations Committee. She served three terms on the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions (chair 2006 to 2008). She is one of two members of the DI Infractions Committee who worked on an NCAA project to make the NCAA enforcement/infractions processes more accessible to media representatives. Professor Potuto represented the Big 12 Conference on the Division I Management Council and also served on the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championship Committee and the Region 5 Postgraduate Scholarship Committee. In 2002 she was named Outstanding Faculty Athletics Representative by the All-American Football Foundation. In Summer 2011 she was one of two FARs to participate in the NCAA Division I Presidential Retreat. In April 2011 Professor Potuto gave the keynote address and also was a presenter at the University of Washington's Executive Masters Program, Evans School of Public Affairs. Potuto consults on sports issues and is a regular presenter on panels dealing with sports law issues, including at the National Association of Collegiate Athletic Directors, NCAA Regional Rules Seminars, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, and at, among others, law schools at Maryland, Marquette, LSU, Arizona State, Santa Clara, and Mississippi. Potuto is on the editorial board of the Journal of NCAA Compliance.
Professor Potuto has a B.A. in Journalism from Douglass College, an M.A. in English Literature from Seton Hall University, and a J.D. from the Rutgers University Law College where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Rutgers Law Review, Best Oralist in the Rutgers Intramural Moot Court Competition, and Captain of the Rutgers National Moot Court Team. She is licensed to practice in Nebraska and New Jersey and is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Anthony Schutz Associate Dean for Faculty & Marvin and Virginia Schmid Foundation Professor of Agricultural Law
Professor Schutz has been with the law school for nearly all of the last 20 years, beginning in 2000. During law school, he worked for Cline, Williams, Wright, Johnson, and Oldfather in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was editor-in-chief of the Nebraska Law Review. He graduated in 2003 with the highest distinction and clerked for the Honorable C. Arlen Beam of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit until 2005. During the 2004-2005 academic year he also taught Legal Research and Writing at the College of Law as an adjunct instructor. During the 2005-2006 academic year he was a Visiting Lecturer in the Lawyering Program at the Cornell Law School. He came back and began teaching here in 2006. Since then, he has taught courses in Agricultural Law, Environmental Law, Water Law, Land Use Regulation, State and Local Government Law, and Contracts. He is currently serving as the Associate Dean for Faculty, which he began in 2020. He is the faculty advisor for the Agricultural and Environmental Law Society, moot court, and Nebraska Connections. The latter role is related to the Rural Law Opportunities Program, which Professor Schutz also leads.
The product of a farm family in Elwood, Nebraska, Professor Schutz's research interests include the often intertwined subjects of agricultural law, environmental and natural resources law, and state and local government, all of which have significant impacts on rural landscapes and populations. Professor Schutz has served as the chair of the AALS Section on Agricultural Law, is active in the American Agricultural Law Association and the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and is a frequent lecturer on agricultural and water law issues regionally and nationally. He tries to keep a close eye on the legislature and encourages students to speak up and take part in the legislative process, both while they are here and in their professional lives going forward.
Professor Schutz has three daughters, Ani, Berlyn, and Celia. His Partner, Joni, and her three children, Abbie, Collin, and Cian, complete a Brady Bunch mixed family (without the Alice, which is much more difficult). From time to time, Professor Schutz finds his sanity by running. He's completed many marathons and a few ultra-marathons, trying to keep up with Joni.
Watch to see how Professor Schutz's research explores the statutory power given to NRDs in the state of Nebraska.
Rachel Tomlinson Dick Lecturer, Director of the Housing Justice Clinic
Rachel Tomlinson Dick joined the College of Law in 2022 as a Housing Justice Fellow, helping to develop and institute the Housing Justice Clinic in its inaugural year. In 2023, Rachel was named Director of the Housing Justice Clinic, which focuses on serving vulnerable Nebraska families facing housing-related legal issues.
Rachel earned her J.D. with highest distinction from the University of Nebraska College of Law in May 2022, obtaining concentrations in Constitutional Law and Litigation. During law school, she provided over 200 hours of pro bono service to the Tenant Assistance Project, and served as a research assistant to Professor Ryan Sullivan, contributing to scholarship focused on landlord-tenant law in Nebraska. Rachel was also named the Theodore C. Sorensen Fellow, received the Woods & Aitken Outstanding Student Award, and served as member of the Nebraska Law Review. As a law student, Rachel presented at a White House and U.S. Department of Justice event focused on law schools’ contributions to eviction prevention work, and had the opportunity to argue an appeal on behalf of a Civil Clinic client in front of the Nebraska Supreme Court.
A Nebraska native, Rachel earned her B.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies, Sociology, and French from University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2010. Before attending law school, her work primarily focused on music and community activism, including helping to start Omaha Girls Rock Camp, and co-founding a boutique, not-for-profit record label centered on combatting sexism in the music industry.
In her free time, Rachel enjoys playing guitar, doing crossword puzzles, working on craft projects, being outdoors, and spending time with her six-year-old daughter.
