Nebraska taps Moberly as dean of College of Law

Richard Moberly, the University of Nebraska College of Law’s interim leader for more than a year, has accepted appointment as its permanent dean.

Executive Vice Chancellor Donde Plowman announced the appointment, which is pending approval by the Board of Regents, on April 4.

“Richard Moberly is an energetic leader, experienced educator and recognized scholar who has forged a reputation of supporting and building excellence within the college, throughout the university and across the state,” Plowman said. “He has an exciting vision for Nebraska Law that will continue to elevate the college and the university. The state’s flagship law school is in excellent hands and I could not be more excited about the future.”

Moberly has taught at Nebraska Law since 2004. He was named associate dean in 2011 and had been the college’s interim dean since February 2016. He succeeds Susan Poser, who left the university in 2015 to become provost at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

“I am excited to lead the College of Law and to continue to build upon its incredibly solid foundation,” Moberly said. “We are ideally positioned to thrive by expanding opportunities for our students, enhancing our connections to the rest of the university and the state of Nebraska and continuing to engage in scholarship that addresses legal issues across the country and internationally.”

Established in 1891, the College of Law is a prestigious regional institution with a growing national reputation. Many of the 31 faculty at the college are nationally known for their scholarship and law reform activities. The college provides more than 340 students with a rigorous and challenging education, and graduates compete well in national employment markets and pass the bar examination at rates above both the state and national averages.

In the past year, Nebraska Law was named the nation’s Best Value Law School for the second straight year by National Jurist magazine. The college has seen solid enrollment growth and opened the Marvin and Virginia Schmid Clinic Building, a 16,000 square-foot, $5 million, privately funded addition to McCollum Hall.

Nebraska Law has also launched the Underserved Law Opportunities Program, a partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha to encourage students in underrepresented communities to pursue a legal education; and the Rural Law Opportunities Program, in which Nebraska Law works with Wayne State College, Chadron State College and the University of Nebraska at Kearney to jointly recruit incoming freshmen from rural Nebraska to pursue legal careers outside the state’s metropolitan areas.

In addition to teaching evidence and employment law courses, Moberly is an active scholar who researches issues related to whistleblowing and the law of secrecy. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on whistleblowing, including research on national security whistleblowers and codes of ethics, as well as an empirical study of Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation claims.

He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, spoken internationally on whistleblower protection, and also co-edited The International Handbook on Whistleblower Research (2014). The U.S. Secretary of Labor has twice appointed Moberly to the Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Upperclass law students have voted Moberly “Professor of the Year” twice and he has also won the College Award for Distinguished Teaching. In 2014, the College of Law Alumni Council presented him with the Distinguished Faculty Award. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.