News

Five incarcerated clients, whose clemency petitions were filed by the Law School’s Clemency Project Clinic directed by Professor JaneAnne Murray, were among the list of commutation grants announced by President Biden on January 17, 2025.  

Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin KC (Hons), Regents Professor, Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy, and Society, and director of Minnesota Law's Human Rights Center, wrote the foreword for a new groundbreaking research report, 

Professor Sapna Kumar, Henry J. Fletcher Professor of Law, has been elected as a member of the American Law Institute (ALI).  ALI elects individuals who reflect the excellence and diversity of today's legal profession. ALI's membership consists of eminent judges, lawyers, and law professors from all areas of the United States and from many foreign countries, selected on the basis of professional achievement and demonstrated interest in improving the law.

Nearly 20 years ago, Professor Claire Hill arrived as a visiting professor at Minnesota Law. She wasn’t expecting to stay long; she didn’t like the cold, and she gravitated toward bigger cities. However, the supportive spirit of the Law School and a love for her colleagues drew the New York native to officially join the faculty in 2006. She says that she didn’t make that decision; she discovered it.

When Alejandra Arboleda ’26 was growing up in New Jersey, she would often accompany her mother, a travel agent, to work. She would overhear customers asking to purchase tickets to “return home.” Her mother, who immigrated from Ecuador, knew the struggle of coming to the United States and would ask people in return why they wanted to leave after working hard to get to this country.

“Larger than life. Intellectual. Fantastic memory. Fearless warrior for the underdog.” That’s how James Sheehy ’89 describes his late brother, John Sheehy ’84, an accomplished trial attorney who was managing partner at Meshbesher & Spence, where for 30 years he practiced initially in criminal defense and then plaintiff’s personal injury.

Ronald A. Erickson ’60, passed away on December 7, at age 88. He was born in Osceola, Wisconsin, and lived in Centuria, Wisconsin, until age 10, when his family moved to the Twin Cities. He graduated from the Blake School and the University of Minnesota, before attending the University of Minnesota Law School, where he graduated in 1960. Erickson went on to work in his family’s business which consisted of petroleum refining, retail petroleum and convenience store sales, wholesale distribution, and outdoor sporting goods.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison '90 (AG) filed a lawsuit last week against gun manufacturer Glock and its Austrian parent company for manufacturing, marketing, and selling semi-automatic handguns that can easily be converted into illegal machine guns with a device known as a  “Glock switch.” Minnesota Law's Gun Violence Prevention Clinic, led by visiting clinical professor of law Megan Walsh