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.
Kevin Ruser Richard and Margaret Larson Professor of Law and M.S. Hevelone Professor of Law
Professor Ruser joined the Law College faculty in June, 1985, as a supervising attorney in the Civil Clinical Law Program. He received a B.A. from UNL in 1975, with an English major and a history minor. Professor Ruser attended UNL College of Law and received his J.D. in 1979. He worked for Western Nebraska Legal Services from 1979-1985; the first two years were spent in the Grand Island branch office, and the last four years were spent in the Scottsbluff office, where he was managing attorney. Professor Ruser is the Director of Clinical Programs at the College of Law and teaches in the Civil Clinic and the Immigration Clinic. He also co-administers the Litigation Skills Program of Concentrated Study. He is a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Clinical Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and the Clinical Legal Educators Association. He is currently Co-Chair of the District Court Forms Subcommittee of the Nebraska Supreme Court Self-Represented Litigants Committee, a member of the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission, a member of the Nebraska Supreme Court’s Civil Justice Reform Committee, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Office of Public Guardian.
Ruser has worked abroad on law reform and legal education reform projects. In the fall of 2015, he worked with the Iliria University Law faculty in Pristina, Kosovo to help them design an experiential learning course on arbitration. From 2012 to 2015, he was involved in a project in which he evaluated and made recommendations for curricular changes in the Masters Level clinical programs at the University of Pristina Law Faculty and Iliria University Law Faculty in Pristina, Kosovo. From 2000 to 2005, he was involved with law and legal education reform efforts in several countries of the former Yugoslavia, most notably Montenegro and Serbia. From 2010 to 2012, he was, along with Professor Steven Schmidt, principal investigator of a USAID-funded grant to help teach oral advocacy techniques to faculty at the law school of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. These skills are needed by Mexican law students and practitioners to enable them to function effectively in Mexico's new oral adversarial system, which was created by recent constitutional reforms in Mexico.
Ruser's research interests lie primarily in the area of “crimmigration” – the intersection of immigration and criminal law. In August, 2012, he published an article in The Habeas, which is the monthly newsletter of the Nebraska Criminal Defense Attorney’s Association, reviewing and analyzing recent decisions by the Nebraska Supreme Court in the area of post-conviction “crimmigration” cases. Also in 2012, he made substantial updates to The Nebraska Criminal Practitioner’s Guide to Representing Non-Citizens in State Court Proceedings, which he first published in 2008. The Guide's purpose is to background criminal law practitioners in immigration law, in order to enable them to effectively advise their non-citizen clients of possible immigration consequences to criminal proceedings in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Padilla v. Kentucky holding that non-citizens have a 6th Amendment right to be advised by their defense counsel of immigration consequences in criminal cases. Ruser developed a 4-hour seminar on "crimmigration" issues and presented this seminar in each of Nebraska's 12 district court judicial districts in 2011 and 2012.
In 2011, Greg McLawsen, Julia McLawsen and Ruser co-authored an article entitled Demonstrating Psychological Hardship: A Statistical Study of Psychological Evaluations in Hardship Waivers of Inadmissibility. The article, which was published in the January 1, 2011 issue of Bender's Immigration Bulletin, reviewed decisions of the Administrative Appeals Office (AA0) to see how helpful it is for non-citizens to submit psychological evaluations with their applications for hardship waivers to certain grounds of inadmissibility. Ruser has written other practice-related manuals and guides, the most recent of which are in the following areas: Chapter 7 consumer bankruptcy (2012); powers of attorney, guardianships and conservatorships (2015); and landlord/tenant law (2014).
Brett C. Stohs Clinical Associate Professor of Law & Cline Williams Director of the Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic
Professor Stohs joined the faculty in March 2012 to establish and direct a new in-house legal clinic that provides legal assistance to entrepreneurs and startup businesses. Since the Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic opened in 2013, Professor Stohs has been pursuing research interests in the application of mind mapping software to clinical legal education. His particular interests relate to using mind mapping techniques to optimize client assignments to student participants in a live-client clinic.
Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Stohs worked in private practice for over six years, focusing primarily on mergers, acquisitions, and other corporate and transactional matters for domestic and foreign clients in a variety of industries. From 2005 to 2011, Stohs practiced with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP in Washington, DC, and in 2011 he joined Rembolt Ludtke LLP in Lincoln. While at Sutherland, Stohs served as a work assignment coordinator for the firm's summer associate program, and as the pro bono coordinator for the firm's partnership with the Advocacy & Justice Clinic operated by the D.C. Bar.
Professor Stohs received his J.D., cum laude, from Duke University School of Law, where he served as Executive Editor for the Duke Law & Technology Review. Stohs also received a Master of Public Policy from the Sanford Institute of Public Policy, and a B.A. in mathematics and political science, with honors, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the Clinical Section of the Association of American Law Schools.
Ryan Sullivan Robert J. Kutak Distinguished Professor of Law
Professor Sullivan joined the Law College faculty in August, 2013, as a supervising attorney in the Civil Clinical Law Program. He received his B.A. from Colorado State University-Pueblo while completing his enlistment in the U.S. Army, majoring in business administration. Thereafter he attended California University of Pennsylvania where he obtained his Master’s in Health Sciences. After a career in the fitness industry, he enrolled at UNL College of Law where he served as an editor of the Nebraska Law Review, the Chair of the Moot Court Board, and a member of the National Trial Team. Following graduation, Professor Sullivan joined the law firm of Kinsey, Rowe, Becker and Kistler where he practiced in the area of general civil litigation.
As the Director of the Civil Clinic, Professor Sullivan supervises student attorneys providing legal services to veterans and underserved populations in the areas of tenant rights, debt collection defense, criminal record rehabilitation, estate planning, family law, and other civil matters. Professor Sullivan also manages the Advance Directive Clinic (ADC) Project, wherein Civil Clinic students provide basic estate planning services to senior citizens in rural and semi-rural Communities around the State of Nebraska. Professor Sullivan also supervises several outreach projects within the Civil Clinic, including the Clean Slate Project, the Veterans Advocacy Project, the Tenants’ Rights Project and the Family Law Project.
He is a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Clinical Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and the Clinical Legal Education Association.
A Nebraska native, Professor Sullivan is an avid Husker fan, and enjoys cycling, woodworking and furniture restoration.
Watch to see how Professor Sullivan is providing representation for families facing eviction.
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.