February 11, 2011
Michael S. Ariens, St. Mary’s University School of Law Associate Dean for Evening Law Program and Professor of Law, was recently elected to membership in the American Law Institute (ALI). Widely considered the most prestigious law reform organization in the United States, ALI generates scholarly work to clarify and modernize the law. With the number of members limited to 4000, ALI membership is a distinct professional honor for lawyers, judges and law professors.
A Constitutional law scholar, Ariens has taught at St. Mary’s since 1987 in areas of Constitutional law, church and state, American legal history and evidence. He is a member of the American Society for Legal History, American Culture Association and a former program chair of the Association of American Law School’s Law and Religion Section. He earned his bachelor’s degree from St. Norbert College, his juris doctor from Marquette University and his LL.M. from Harvard University.
Other St. Mary’s law faculty who are ALI members include Vincent Johnson, Geary Reamey, Bernard Reams and David Schlueter. St. Mary’s graduates who are members of ALI are St. Mary’s Law School Dean Charles E. Cantú, Texas Supreme Court Justice Paul Green, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Barbara Hervey, Fulbright & Jaworski LLP Partner Robert Newman and Michael S. Goodrich, partner at the firm of Goodrich Postnikoff Albertson & Petrocchi, LLP, in Fort Worth.