Aleida Ortega Conners (’13) has been named president-elect of the Minnesota Hispanic Bar Association, which was founded in 1991 to organize Hispanic attorneys, judges, law students, and other concerned members of the Hispanic community into a force for professional and community benefit. Conners is an associate with the Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron, where she specializes in corporate law and helping businesses expand into Latin American markets. Her MHBA term began April 20 and will extend through 2018.

David R. Stras, an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and a former professor at the Law School, was nominated on Monday to the United States Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit by President Donald Trump. Stras was a faculty member at the Law School from 2004 to 2010, teaching and writing primarily in the areas of constitutional law, federal courts and jurisdiction, and criminal law. In 2006, just two years after arriving at the Law School, he was named the Stanley V. Kinyon Tenure Track Teacher of the Year.

The Law School Career Center has been selected as the 2017 recipient of the P&A Senate Outstanding Unit Award. The award, given annually by the University’s Academic Professionals and Administrators Senate, recognizes a University unit that is exemplary in its support of professional and administrative staff and the role they fulfill in advancing the University’s mission.

Robert A. Stein (’61), the Everett Fraser Professor of Law at the Law School, is among the recipients of the 2017 University of Minnesota President’s Award for Outstanding Service. The award was established in 1997 to recognize faculty and staff who have provided exceptional service to the University, its schools, colleges, departments, and service units; such service must have gone well beyond the regular duties of a faculty or staff member, and demonstrate unusual commitment to the University community. Each year, approximately 12 individuals are chosen to receive the award.

The Minnesota State Bar Association has announced that Alexandra Klass, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the Law School, has been awarded the 2017 Eldon G. Kaul Distinguished Service Award from the MSBA’s Environmental, Natural Resource, and Energy Law Section. The award recognizes a member of the bench or bar who has demonstrated a significant commitment and made an outstanding contribution to environmental, natural resources or energy law in the state of Minnesota.

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has appointed Jessica J.W. Maher (’99) to serve as a district judge in the state’s 1st Judicial District, which encompasses Carver, Dakota, Goodhue, Le Sueur, McLeod, Scott, and Sibley counties. In making the appointment, Dayton praised Maher for her “exceptional commitment to public service” and said that “Minnesotans will be well served by her sound judgment and legal expertise.”