A group of 24 young leaders from 18 Sub-Saharan African countries is visiting the Indiana University Maurer School of Law today (July 8) as part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders.

The Fellows are in Bloomington as part of the six-week Leadership in Civic Engagement Institute at IU, and will connect with members of the Law School’s faculty and staff for a discussion on various legal topics, including:

• Assistant Dean for International Programs Lesley Davis will present on the Americans with Disabilities Act and facilitate a conversation with the Fellows to allow them to share their experiences with disability, accessibility and inclusion in their respective countries;
• Professor Emeritus Kevin Brown will present on a number of issues facing Black Americans, including how the American legal system typically resolves racial disputes, changing racial and ethnic ancestry of Blacks in the United States, Affirmative Action, and racial and ethnic socioeconomic conditions across the country; and
• Professor Luis Fuentes-Rohwer will conclude the Fellows’ session at the Law School, presenting “The U.S. Constitution in Governing Through the Rule of Law and American Legal Thought.”

This year will mark the third time the Mandela Washington Fellows have spent a day at Maurer during their visit to IU. “We’re honored to host this distinguished group of emerging civic leaders at the Law School again this year. The Maurer community is enriched by learning from their experiences on the African continent and we are delighted to have the opportunity to share the expertise of our faulty on issues of interest to the group,” said Interim Dean Christiana Ochoa. “We’re honored to play a role in their time here in Bloomington.”

The Mandela Washington Fellowship, the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), empowers young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentoring, networking, professional opportunities, and local community engagement. YALI was created in 2010 and supports young Africans as they spur economic growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.

Since 2014, the U.S. Department of State has supported nearly 5,100 Mandela Washington Fellows from across Sub-Saharan Africa to develop their leadership skills and foster connections and collaboration with U.S. professionals. The cohort of Fellows hosted by Indiana University is part of a group of 700 Mandela Washington Fellows hosted at 27 educational institutions across the United States.

In addition to their session at the Law School, the Fellows will have unique opportunities for learning and developing skills and technical capacity in areas such as community development, volunteerism, grassroots activism, leadership, social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and fundraising for non-profits.

After their Leadership Institutes, Fellows will travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the Mandela Washington Fellowship Summit, where they will take part in networking and panel discussions with each other and with U.S. leaders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and implemented by IREX, Leadership Institutes offer programs that will challenge, motivate, and empower young leaders from Africa to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.

A new collaboration between the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and John Paul Stevens Foundation will expand financial support to students working in unpaid summer public interest positions.

Five Indiana Law students, working in a variety of capacities around the country this summer, have been selected as inaugural Stevens Fellows. They are:

• Olivia Allen, 2L, Monroe County (Indiana) Public Defender’s Office
• Annie Horner, 3L, Marion County (Indiana) Public Defender Agency
• Megan Merritt, 2L, Legal Council for Health Justice, Chicago
• Nainika Ravi, 2L, Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases, Texas
• Eric Warman, 3L, Children’s Law Center, Covington, Kentucky

Named after the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the John Paul Stevens Foundation is dedicated to promoting public interest and social justice values in the next generation of American lawyers. Through its unique fellowship program, the Foundation supports law students who spend the summer working in unpaid public interest law internships. The Fellowship Program reflects Justice Stevens’ deep belief that a dynamic and effective justice system depends on a cadre of trained and committed lawyers committed to public interest work.

The Maurer School of Law is one of eight new schools participating in the program, which now includes 38 law schools across the nation.

“The Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellowship Program is another way the Law School will help provide exceptional support to our students over the summer,” said Dean Austen Parrish. “And that, in turn, will allow our students to serve their local communities while honing their professional skills.”

Law students selected for a Stevens Fellowship will receive a $6,000 stipend—matched by the Law School—for the summer. The selection process is administered by the Law School, with applications accepted in the spring semester.

“Public interest work is about providing legal services to those that need them, but it is also about the larger effect this work has on the community,” Merritt said. A former nursing home assistant and clinic volunteer, Merritt said she will use her summer position to gain firsthand exposure to the field of health law. “This position and Fellowship will allow me to give back to the community by working with individual clients and give me the opportunity to learn from lawyers who have worked on various successful policy reform efforts.”

The Law School traditionally supports approximately 70 students working in unpaid public interest jobs every summer. In addition to Stevens Fellowships, the Law School offers summer funding through its Stewart Fellows Program, Family Office Program, the Julian Bond Scholar Program with the Southern Poverty Law Center, its four research centers, and more.

“The Law School provides one of the most comprehensive offerings of public service programs of any law school in the country,” Parrish said, noting that PreLaw magazine has recognized Indiana Law as “one of the best schools for doing good.”

Nearly three-quarters of all Stevens Fellows go on to work in public interest or social justice positions after they earn a law degree, according to the Stevens Foundation.

“We are delighted to be working with the leadership at these eight law schools to make this expansion possible,” says Susan Stevens Mullen, Justice Stevens’s daughter and a member of the Foundation’s board of directors.  “These schools were selected based on their commitment to producing public interest lawyers and the need for additional financial support for their students. We look forward to these collaborations, which will prepare the next generation of attorneys whose public interest work will shape law and public policy for years to come.”

President Joe Biden announced three judicial nominees on May 25, including the Hon. Doris L. Pryor—a 2003 graduate of the Maurer School of Law—to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Judge Pryor has served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Indiana since 2018. Before that role, Judge Pryor served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana, and as National Security Chief for the office from 2014 to 2018. From 2005 to 2006, Judge Pryor served as a Deputy Public Defender for the State of Arkansas Public Defender’s Commission. Judge Pryor served as a law clerk for Judge J. Leon Holmes on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas from 2004 to 2005 and for Chief Judge Lavenski Smith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit from 2003 to 2004.

“These choices also continue to fulfill the President’s promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country — both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds,” the White House said in a statement.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Judge Pryor would make history, becoming the first judge of color to ever serve on the Seventh Circuit from Indiana.

Judge Pryor has been actively involved with the Law School since she graduated. In 2015 she began teaching a pre-trial litigation course during the school’s Wintersession, held during the week before the spring semester begins. And in August 2021, she delivered the keynote address at orientation and administered the oath of professionalism to the incoming 1L class.

A new Netflix documentary utilizes the expertise of an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor to help explain the legal ramifications of an extraordinary fertility fraud case.

Jody Madeira, an internationally recognized expert in fertility fraud, bioethics, and law and medicine, with a focus on reproductive endocrinology, is featured as a legal expert in Our Father. The documentary examines the case of Indianapolis doctor Donald Cline, a fertility specialist who, after a fraud investigation, was found to have used his own sperm to artificially inseminate patients in the early-to-mid 1980s.

When Jacoba Ballard took a commercially available DNA test in 2014, she was surprised to discover she had seven half-siblings. As time went on, and more and more people uploaded results of their genetic testing to online databases, the number of Ballard’s half-siblings continued to grow. Cline is believed to have biologically fathered at least 94 individuals between 1979 and 1986. Court records indicate that Cline told women he was inseminating them with sperm from medical or dental residents or medical students, never acknowledging that he was using his own sperm in the process. Ballard started connecting with her half-siblings as more and more continued to appear in genealogy results, eventually bringing a complaint to the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.

Our Father covers the ethical, moral, and legal complexities of the case. At the time the inseminations occurred, there were no laws prohibiting what Cline did. While many women argued they were raped, prosecutors were faced with a major dilemma—how do you hold someone accountable for an action, reprehensible as it may be, that wasn’t illegal when it occurred?

“When you talk about rape, there is a provision in Indiana law that says rape can include conduct which a victim doesn’t know is sexual, but the perpetrator knows is sexual,” Madeira tells the film’s producers. “And that I think is the closest charge.”

Madeira interviewed Tim Delaney, the deputy prosecutor with the grand jury division of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, who handled the Cline case.

Cline was eventually charged in 2016 with two counts of felony obstruction of justice, for lying during the investigation. Cline admitted to lying about his involvement in the conceptions when he pleaded guilty to both counts in 2017. He received two suspended sentences and paid a $500 fine.

That punishment, Cline’s offspring argue, was not nearly severe enough for what he did. But Madeira notes that based on the laws Delaney had to enforce, he wasn’t able to go after Cline for more severe charges. If anything, she said, the case illustrates the limits of the judicial system.

“I think we have to see Tim Delaney in which the context this was brought. He said that Indiana juries were not willing to buy rape by deception theories. The jury is going to say ‘This woman consented to insemination,’ ‘This woman wanted a child,’ and the question is always out there: Does this woman’s desire for a child legitimate Donald Cline’s deception? And unfortunately, that is a question that Tim Delaney had to weigh would enter into the minds of jurors.”

Our Father is streaming now on Netflix.

As the Limestone Comedy Festival takes over downtown Bloomington for the ninth consecutive year, Indiana Law rising 3L Conor Delehanty will be a familiar face, hosting or performing in three different shows throughout the weekend.

The Indianapolis native studied philosophy, criminal justice, and religious studies at Indiana University as an undergraduate from 2008 to 2012. On December 1, 2010, Delehanty tried something he’d always wanted to do—standup comedy. Home to the nationally renowned Comedy Attic, Bloomington has become a small mecca of comedy in recent years, attracting both household names (John Mulaney, Amy Schumer, Marc Maron, and Hannibal Buress, to name but a few) and up-and-coming superstars from around the country. It provided the perfect environment for Delehanty to get started in the field.

“Had I started doing comedy earlier in my undergraduate career, I almost surely would’ve dropped out,” he said. But he finished his undergraduate education—with three majors—and moved to Chicago, where he took a job as a real estate appraiser. The flexible work schedule allowed Delehanty to continue performing at Chicago venues. That led to a move to New York City, where he honed his standup skills while working various jobs to pay the rent.

“But I had always been thinking about law school,” he said. “It was my plan before I even started doing standup. If I hadn’t started doing comedy, I would’ve started studying for the LSAT even sooner.” His older brother, Joe, graduated from the Maurer School of Law in 2013, and following his path seemed a natural road to take.

So after nearly a decade away, Delehanty returned to Bloomington—this time as a 1L. Performing for audiences around the country helped prepare him for life as a law student.

“There are similarities,” he said of the pressures of law school and making a group of strangers laugh, “but it’s also different. When you’re doing comedy, you’re in control. You’re the one presenting. I’m still getting used to being in the audience, so to speak, but I realized after the first few cold calls, just knowing how to react on the spot helps me deal with it more than most students.”

Delehanty originally had a plan to become a public defender when he started at Indiana Law, but a stint at a public defender’s office last summer pointed him in a new direction.

“My whole 2L year I’ve worked with the Conservation Law Center, and really enjoyed that, so working in a public interest field like environmental law is something I’m thinking about now,” he said. He has a summer placement with the Indiana Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division, where he’ll help Hoosiers protect themselves against deceptive and predatory business practices. Delehanty is also active with the Law School’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Law Association, serves as a fellow with the Center for Constitutional Democracy, and is an associate with the Journal of Law and Social Equality.

Through all the demands of law school, Delehanty has remained active in the standup scene, performing his dry, cerebral comedy whenever he can. The annual Limestone Comedy Festival serves as a showcase not only for Bloomington as a comedy town, but for the city’s many successful comics.

Delehanty will perform as part of the Blooming10, where 10 local comedians perform at the historic Buskirk-Chumley Theater, and host two other shows at the festival.

“It’s amazing to me how Limestone happens,” he said. “I still remember the first night of the first festival. But the best part about it is that I get to introduce Bloomington to comedians who haven’t been here before. In a lot of bigger cities, some people’s perceptions of the Midwest aren’t accurate, so I love getting to show visitors the true character of this town.”

Mixing observational material with personal storytelling, Delehanty hopes to continue performing as long as he can—even after he earns a law degree.

“I realize that every once in awhile I may have to make that decision,” he said of focusing on a legal career instead of standup, “but as long as I’m still coming up with ideas, as long as the well isn’t dry, I think I’ll still be performing.”

While he waits to go onstage this weekend, Delehanty is eagerly awaiting his spring semester grades.

“Tell my professors I could use some good ones,” he said.

It wasn’t clear if he was joking.

You can catch Delehanty at the Blooming10 Showcase at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Buskirk-Chumley, or hosting shows for Emil Wakim (Friday, 10 p.m.) and Ashley Gavin (Saturday, 10 p.m.) at the Blockhouse Bar.

After two rounds of peer review, Indiana Law Professor Rob Fischman’s “Collaborative Governance Under the Endangered Species Act: An Empirical Analysis of Protective Regulations” has been judged one of the five best environmental law articles published in 2021. The Land Use and Environment Law Review will reprint the article, originally published in the Yale Journal on Regulation.

Fischman co-authored the article with conservation biologist Vicky Meretsky, from Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Environmental Protection Agency Senior Assistant Regional Counsel Matthew Castelli, JD’15

The reviewers selected Fischman’s work from more than 100 articles. This marks the second selection of one of Fischman’s works to be included in the annual publication, and the ninth time one of his articles has made it to the final review panel (including three of the past four years).

“The recognition for Professor Fischman’s work is well deserved,” said Dean Austen Parrish. “His record of scholarship on environmental law issues is impressive, and his collaborations with other scholars—including at the nation’s top-ranked O’Neill School—is a testament to the interdisciplinary work that makes a difference.”

“Collaborative Governance” examines the nearly 200 Endangered Species Act (ESA) protective regulations that tailor federal restrictions to the ecological and social circumstances of particular extinction threats. The researchers’ empirical study explored how those rules manifest collaborative governance, as well as the extent to which they promote imperiled species recovery. Castelli, Fischman, and Meretsky focused on provisions in which parties agree to curb activities in exchange for limited statutory liability. They found that three-quarters of protective regulations substitute practice-based limitations for difficult-to-detect, proximate-effect prohibitions.

In this way, collaborative governance transforms the ESA from a statute prohibiting certain outcomes (such as harm or jeopardy to a species) to a regulatory program implementing collaboratively crafted best practices, along the lines of pollution-control statutes. Paradoxically, this shift may improve the prospect for species recovery, even with regulations that are less stringent than the standard statutory prohibitions. These and related results support the authors’ recommended new mechanisms for crafting better regulations to improve conservation outcomes. The article also contributes evidence to test the collaborative governance concepts advanced in legal and policy scholarship.

An Indiana University Maurer School of Law graduate is one of 84 recipients of a 2022 Equal Justice Works Fellowship from the nation’s largest facilitator of opportunities in public interest law.

Kat Grant, who graduated May 7, will spend two years working to improve the legal landscape for LGBTQIA+ people in the United States through a focused effort on advocacy based on the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment.

“As a queer person who grew up in a conservative religious community, I know first-hand how important the separation of church and state is to ensure the safety and dignity of LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities,” Grant said.

Members of the 2022 class of Equal Justice Works Fellows were selected from 385 applications. Each applicant designs a unique project in partnership with a legal service organization. The projects are funded by law firms, corporations, private foundations, and individual supporters. This year’s class includes graduates from 45 law schools across the country. Fellows will work at 76 different legal service organizations across 20 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

“We’re proud to see the Law School’s long legacy of outstanding public interest lawyers continue with Kat’s selection as an Equal Justice Works Fellow,” said Dean Austen Parrish. “Their dedication to improving the lives of those from traditionally underserved communities will have a lasting impact.”

Grant said their passion for advocacy started with their experiences as an openly queer student, reaffirming their commitment to “making the world a safer, more equitable place for all members of LGBTQIA+ communities.”

Grant will work on litigation through representation and amicus briefs as LGBTQIA+ rights cases make their way through the court system. They will also work on public educational materials, including know your rights resources and webinars, and participate in legislative advocacy efforts.

“It is an honor for Equal Justice Works to play a role in helping new public interest lawyers pursue their passion for public service and equal justice,” said Jessica Ryckman, Equal Justice Works Director of Fellowships. “We are proud to support Kat in their work to improve the legal landscape for LGBTQIA+ people in our country and we look forward to highlighting their contributions over the next two years.”

A native of Washington, Indiana, Grant earned their undergraduate degree in political science from Indiana University Bloomington. During their time at the Maurer School of Law, Grant served as co-director of the Law School’s LGBTQ+ Project, as student chair of the National Lawyer’s Guild Disability Justice Committee, as a member of the Disability Justice Committee for the Maurer Chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild, and was involved in OUTLaw, a student alliance working to promote equal rights and protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.

Grant was honored on May 6 with the Leonard D. Fromm Public Interest Student Award, presented by the Law School’s Public Interest Law Foundation to a student who excelled at community service. Grant completed more than 250 hours of pro bono service during their time at Indiana Law.

Heather Gin was five when she announced to her mother that she would be going to law school one day. While the prospect of having an attorney in the family made her mother proud, the reality of affording a legal education was daunting. Upon hearing the news of her daughter’s intention to pursue a law degree, Nancy Gin wanted to support her daughter in every way possible. She impressed upon Heather the seriousness of her aspirations at a very young age:

“Heather, you have two good hands. Use them to help others,” she said.

Heather ran with her mother’s words. And when she earns her JD on May 7, Nancy and her husband Ming, who have worked tirelessly to support their family, will be there in person to celebrate.

“My parents grew up very poor,” Heather said. “My dad immigrated from Hong Kong when he was 14 and my mom grew up the youngest of five in downriver Detroit. She was raised by her older sister and was one of the first 13 women across the nation promoted to manager at a K-Mart store in the 1970s.”

Despite entering an American school for the first time as a freshman, Ming Gin went on to become valedictorian of Detroit’s Northern High School. Only one of two Asian students in the entire high school, Ming Gin spent his spare time working at the Golden Dragon, the family’s restaurant in the city’s Chinatown. He went on to work at General Motors in sales and marketing for 46 years and retired last spring.

Ming and Nancy started a family later in life—Heather and Nancy are separated by more than 40 years—and assisting her parents as they grow older hasn’t been a detriment for Heather.

It’s been an inspiration.

“My mother is paralyzed on her left side,” Heather said, “and my family is getting older. Through it all I’ve seen how the aging process is so inequitable and rife with fraud and abuse. Simply navigating choices such as placing a loved one into a nursing home or filling out health care directives can be an immense challenge. That’s what drew me to wills, trusts, and estate planning. Ultimately, I want to do good and help people.”

But it was the help of the Indiana Law faculty and staff that drew Heather Gin to Bloomington in the first place.

“When I walked through the doors, I felt comfortable here,” she said. “I didn’t get that feeling with other schools I visited—I felt like a number.”

And the Office of Admissions expressed a deep and authentic interest in her family and how Heather might adjust to law school. “They wanted to meet my parents and get to know them,” she said.

In fact, when the family was visiting prospective law schools, Nancy Gin couldn’t get in to any of their facilities due to her disability—they simply weren’t accessible. But the Maurer School of Law welcomed the Gins in and ensured they were able to see the place where Heather would spend the next three years.

She discovered quickly that law school is hard. But not impossible. A political science major at the University of Michigan, Gin was prepared for the rigorous academic challenges law school poses for any new student. But everyone has to adjust to their new surroundings.

“Every day of my 1L year I kept thinking to myself ‘I can’t do this,’” she said. But her self-doubt was overcome by ambition and a strong work ethic. Even the interruption of COVID-19, which forced Gin and her classmates to complete their 2L year mostly online, didn’t stop her. In fact, the experience changed her view of the world, and as she entered her 3L year, she’d gained a new level of confidence.

“I knew I’d have the backing of a world-class legal education,” she said.

With a “normal,” in-person final year, Heather Gin couldn’t have been happier. She is thankful for this community and the people within it.

“I’ve made so many incredible connections here,” she said. “I was walking home after class today and waved to five people I knew on the street. That’s what makes Maurer so special. The people here aren’t out to get you. They want to help and get to know you. The legal profession as a whole perpetuates this idea that you have to make your path at any cost. Here I’ve learned that’s simply not true. I’ve felt supported since my first day.”

Gin and her classmates have forged strong connections, having completed law school during a global pandemic.

“We help each other move. We get coffee and drinks together. We make Trader Joe’s runs up to Indianapolis,” she said. “This is a place where you can feel comfortable approaching your classmates to ask for clarification on class material or get a large group together to attend a Jukebox Luke concert at the Bluebird. That energy is special.”

Those classmates recognized Gin’s leadership abilities right away, electing her as their 1L representative to the Student Bar Association, which she became president of for her 3L year.

“I was the president of the Panhellenic Association, the biggest student organization at Michigan,” she said, “and I discovered I really like leadership. I want to make a mark on my communities and leave them better than I found them. I started as a 1L rep here with the SBA, and found it to be a great way to voice the opinions of the students to the administration and come up with a middle ground that works.”

Now, as she prepares for the next chapter in her life, Gin has already started providing advice to the next generation of students who will follow her.

“A 1L asked me for advice earlier this year, and I told him, ‘Put your blinders on. The people around you are going to say they were in the library until 4 a.m., and while that may work for some, you have to figure out what works for you. Be confident in your own abilities and the trajectory you’re on and pave the way forward for others like you.’”

Gin hopes to return to Michigan sometime in the future, possibly pursuing a run for elected office.

But her dream job?

“I want to be a Regent of the University of Michigan,” she said.

“I’m going to start small, then go big.”

Watching the afterburners of F-15s and F-16s take off from Elmendorf Air Base in southern Alaska lit a fire in Charles Westerhaus as a kindergartener. His passion for aviation led him to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and later to the Navy’s flight school where he learned to operate the Lockheed P-3 Orion and Boeing P-8 Poseidon. Four decades later, Westerhaus is about to take off from a different runway altogether when he crosses the stage at the Indiana University Auditorium to earn his law degree.

Moving from place to place—and thus school to school—as the son of an Air Force veteran taught Westerhaus to adapt on the fly early on in life.

“Every year was different,” he said, of growing up in California, Alaska, Wisconsin, and Indiana. “But I knew early on I wanted to do two things—to fly and to go to law school one day.” When it came time to decide on a collegiate destination, the Naval Academy offered Westerhaus the best chance to pursue his dream of becoming an airman. He completed flight school and was sent to Jacksonville, Florida to become trained as a mission commander/tactical coordinator of the P-3, known primarily for its capabilities as a surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft.

The mission commander’s responsibilities include the safety of the airplane and ensuring the crew’s mission is completed. “Think ‘Goose,’” he said, referring to the Top Gun character.

His last day of flight school was on September 11, 2001.

That changed his first deployment from what he thought would be a relatively mundane deployment in Asia to a situation where a nation was suddenly in a wartime posture.

“I accumulated more than 600 hours of combat time,” Westerhaus said.

His leadership skills were quickly recognized by his peers and his commanding officers alike, and he was chosen to become an instructor for all new pilots and Navy officers. He went on to teach scores of pilots and commanders over the course of his two-decade career.

While his mother, fellow Maurer alumna Charlotte Westerhaus-Renfrow, ’92, thought her son could retire as a Naval aviator, he knew he wanted to become a lawyer. He always did.

As a child, Westerhaus would often visit one of his mother’s friends, the Hon. Norma Higgins, the first Black female judge in the state of Washington. On a road trip from Alaska to Ohio, Westerhaus’ biological father stopped in Washington so the pair could visit “Auntie Norma” as the younger Westerhaus called her. She invited him to her courtroom the next day.

“You never know those moments as a child that will stick with you,” he recalled. “But I remember walking into that courtroom as a five- or six-year-old and thinking it was inspiring. Seeing this woman who’d made us Easter dinner the day before take command of a courtroom made me realize early on I wanted to be part of this game of chess of very intricate rules.”

After his overseas deployment came to an end, Westerhaus was based again in Washington, where he’d see Higgins often. She continued to encourage him to pursue law school. And so, at the age of 41, he did.

The Law School’s former Assistant Dean of Admissions, Frank Motley, had recruited Westerhaus-Renfrow back in 1989, encouraging her and her late husband David Westerhaus—and Indiana native—to come visit. Motley even took Westerhaus to his first Indiana University basketball game, an exhibition against Athletes in Action.

In 2008, when his now-wife came out to Indiana to meet the Westerhaus family, Motley invited them down to Bloomington to see the Law School.

“As we were walking to the Indiana Memorial Union, I told my father that I’d come here and earn a law degree,” Westerhaus said. “It was a commitment I made to him before he passed away.”

Almost 15 years later, that promise will be kept when the school recognizes the Class of 2022 on May 7.

Life as an older law student can be lonely at times, Westerhaus admits, but he credits his family—his wife, three children, and yes, his mother—with providing a support system that has kept him engaged.

“I’ve been called ‘Professor’ more times than I need to hear,” he joked, “but I have a newfound appreciation for my younger peers. There’s a space of openness here that has exposed me to different ideas.”

As an Admissions Fellow, Westerhaus has been engaging with future Indiana Law students, serving as a resource for them as they navigate their path to law school. While Westerhaus will pursue a career in cybersecurity and data privacy with Faegre Drinker in Indianapolis, he knows not everyone has their journey mapped out before they start their legal education. And that’s okay, he said.

“When I have these discussions with admitted students, I always ask them if they know what kind of law they’d like to practice,” Westerhaus said. “And I applaud the ones who say they don’t know. As the son of a lawyer, I know my mom never brought her work home. I didn’t even know what kind of law she focused on. There are so many little things in law school that can change your direction.”

Westerhaus’ military background caught the attention of Dean Austen Parrish, who suggested that Indiana University’s Master of Science in Cybersecurity Risk Management program might be a perfect addition to his legal studies.

“You can read the tea leaves, and whether it’s in the military world or in the media, you can easily see that cybersecurity and privacy are going to continue being areas of strong growth in the years ahead,” he said. “When I was interviewing for jobs, the dual-degree would always stand out. When I was in the Navy, we were taught two things: Always have options and always try to be in an area of growth. The dual-degree is going to help me get in on the ground floor of a fast-moving field.”

As he wraps up his Law School career, Westerhaus has some advice for the next generation of law students.

“Let the fields of law find you,” he said. “Let the spontaneity of finding something that grabs your interest lead you in the direction you want. And enjoy every passing moment. They fly by.”

Christiana Ochoa, executive associate dean at Indiana University Bloomington’s Maurer School of Law, has been named interim dean starting July 1. Ochoa is the Class of 1950 Herman B Wells Endowed Professor at the Maurer School of Law and serves as the founding academic director for the IU Mexico Gateway, IU’s office in Latin America. She is the first Latina to hold a decanal title at the Law School.

“Professor Christiana Ochoa comes highly recommended by her colleagues and I am grateful that she has agreed to serve as interim dean of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law,” said Provost and Executive Vice President Rahul Shrivastav. “Her experiences as a human rights attorney, corporate attorney, founding center director, professor, and academic leader have prepared her for the complexities of this role.”

In addition to her current administrative roles, Ochoa has served as associate vice provost for faculty and academic affairs for the IU Bloomington campus (2014-2017), as associate dean for research and academic affairs (2017-2019) at the Law School, and as a founding associate director of IU’s Center for Documentary Research and Practice (2015-present).

Ochoa’s scholarly and teaching contributions have been significant. Her theoretical and empirical research contributes to the fields of business and human rights, law and development, international finance, and foreign direct investment. She has taught Contracts, International Law, International Business Transactions, Human Rights, and Law and Development, and her scholarship in these areas has been published in the nation’s top law journals. In 2014 she directed a documentary film, Otra Cosa No Hay. She has also served in national leadership roles with the American Society of International Law and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), including serving as chair of the AALS Section on International Law and chair of the AALS Section on International Human Rights Law.

Prior to entering academia, Ochoa worked several years with the multinational law firm Clifford Chance in its London and New York offices. She holds B.A. degrees (in History and American Culture) from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

“I am honored to be asked to serve as interim dean for the Maurer School of Law,” Ochoa said. “We have an extraordinary faculty, dedicated and gifted staff, and tremendously engaged students and alumni. I look forward to working with all in the community to continue to advance the Law School’s mission in this interim period.”

After more than eight years in the role, Dean Austen Parrish announced on April 7 that he is stepping down from the deanship to take on the same position with the University of California, Irvine School of Law.

“Christy will be an excellent leader for the Maurer School of Law as the university launches a search for our new dean,” Parrish said. “Her appointment by Provost Shrivastav was supported by the unanimous recommendation of our elected Policy Committee, the school’s Board of Visitors, and our senior staff leaders. Christy is widely admired by our colleagues here and has played a key role in shaping the school’s strategic vision. I can’t imagine the Law School being in better hands.”

Shrivastav thanked Parrish for his leadership of the school since 2014.

“Dean Parrish’s successful eight-year tenure at Maurer has positioned the school for even greater success,” he said. “He has forged partnerships with nearly 30 external institutions to increase diversity among the student body; led a $60 million capital campaign; and expanded the school’s interdisciplinary degree programs, to name just a few of his many accomplishments.”

As Ochoa steps into the interim dean role, she will be supported by a talented senior leadership team. Professor Donna Nagy will step back into the interim Executive Associate Dean role (a position she held with distinction from 2013-2019 and again in 2020-21). Professors Deborah Widiss and Ryan Scott will remain as Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Affairs and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, respectively.