Kristen Blankley Henry M. Grether, Jr., Professor of Law
Professor Blankley is the Henry M. Grether, Jr., Professor of Law. She teaches and researches in the areas of alternative dispute resolution, legal ethics, and at the intersection of ethics and dispute resolution. She teaches Alternative Dispute Resolution, Advocacy in Mediation, Mediation, Family Mediation, Arbitration, Facilitation, and Legal Professions, and Sports Law Practice. She also coaches students in mediation competitions.
Professor Blankley researches a wide variety of topics within alternative dispute resolution. She publishes on domestic arbitration topics under the Federal Arbitration Act, focusing on issues involving jurisdiction, preemption, statutory interpretation. She also writes on mediation ethics, arbitration ethics, collaborative law ethics, and other topics in the area of ADR ethics. She is also engaged in interdisciplinary research focusing primarily on restorative justice.
She is involved in ADR policy within Nebraska as well as nationwide initiatives. Professor Blankley served as a member of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Council from 2016-2022, and she is a former chair for the Section on Ethics. Professor Blankley has been involved in developing ethics policies and standards in the areas of mediation, restorative justice, and special master work.
Professor Blankley currently sits on the University's Academic Rights and Responsibility Panel, which is an elected position. She also serves by appointment on the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee.
Locally, Professor Blankley sits on the Board of Directors of The Mediation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is a past member of the Board of Directors and former Board President of the Nebraska Mediation Association. She also serves as the Secretary of the Advisory Council for the Nebraska Office of Dispute Resolution. Professor Blankley serves as a community mediator for three community mediation centers across Nebraska. She is a member of the FINRA roster of arbitrators, for consumer and employment cases in the area of securities.
Professor Blankley joined the faculty in 2010. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science and graduated summa cum laude from Hiram College, and she received her J.D. from The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law, and graduating first in her class and earning a Certificate in Dispute Resolution. After law school, Professor Blankley served as a law clerk on the Sixth and Eighth Circuits and worked at the Columbus, Ohio office of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, LLP (now Squire Patton Boggs).
Watch to see how Professor Blankley's research is disrupting the school to prison pipeline in Nebraska.
Craig M. Lawson Professor of Law Emeritus
Professor Lawson directs the first-year Legal Writing Program, coordinating the work in it, and lecturing. His main course is first-year Torts. He also teaches Advanced Torts, three electives in Health Law (Law and Medicine, Bioethics and the Law, the Law of Provider and Patient) and two advanced electives in legal writing (Style and Composition in Legal Writing, and Law & Literature). In 2011, Professor Lawson won the Alumni Council's Distinguished Faculty award.
Professor Lawson is an avid reader, especially in the humanities and the arts (literature - especially lyric poetry - and literary criticism, philosophy, art history and art criticism) and in medicine and the life sciences. He's a self-taught, amateur guitar picker (VERY amateur). When he has the time to couch potato, he favors movies over Monday-night football. He leads a relatively sedentary existence, although he will climb on a mountain bike, when he needs to get his blood moving. When he comes out of the closet, he admits to being an unreconstructed 1960s liberal. He is married to an actress, and has two grown children (one an actress in New York City; the other an out-of-work geologist in Southern California).