Pacific Appoints New Dean for McGeorge School of Law

SACRAMENTO, CA – On January 5, 2011, University of the Pacific Provost Maria Pallavicini announced that Francis “Jay” Mootz has been appointed the next dean of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. Mootz is currently the William S. Boyd Professor of Law and associate dean for academic affairs and faculty development at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He will assume his new duties July 1.

“Jay Mootz brings a compelling balance of professional and academic experience to the table,” said Pallavicini. “Jay is a visionary, leader, teacher and scholar. He has taught for 21 years, worked as an associate dean at two law schools, practiced as a commercial litigator, and published widely on legal issues. He is also a strong advocate for legal education in a liberal arts environment—a core tenet at Pacific McGeorge.”

Mootz was selected as the next dean of the law school after a national search to replace current Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker. Parker announced last spring that she would step down after 10 years as dean.

“McGeorge has all the right building blocks in place, with its focus on strong lawyering skills, its location in one of the country’s most important state capitals, and its strong and committed faculty,” said Mootz. “I am excited to continue the stellar work of Dean Parker and her faculty.”

Mootz earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Notre Dame, an M.A. in philosophy at Duke University Graduate School, and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law. He joined the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV in 2008, after previous teaching appointments at Penn State (Dickinson School of Law), Dickinson College, the College of William and Mary (Marshall-Wythe School of Law), and Western New England School of Law.

Mootz has written in traditional doctrinal areas such as insurance, contract and sales law, and he also has undertaken an ambitious agenda of interdisciplinary scholarship exploring relationships between law and contemporary European philosophy. His courses at UNLV have included sales, payment systems, jurisprudence, contracts and insurance law.

Mootz is a regular presenter at academic symposia focusing on issues of legal theory. He has given talks in Europe, Africa, and South America, and he delivered lectures in Italy during December 2008 as part of a “Jean Monnet course” funded by the European Union. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the interdisciplinary journal, Law, Culture and the Humanities, and is an active member of the North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics, the Law and Society Association, and is a member of the Organizing Committee of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities. He has been a Member of the Board of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws since 2006.