Promotions Announced for Six Fowler School of Law Faculty Members

Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School is pleased to announce the recent promotions, effective at the start of the 2016-2017 academic year, of the following six faculty members:

David Dowling
–
Promoted to Clinical Professor of Law

Professor Dowling joined the Fowler School of Law faculty in 2007 as an adjunct professor working with the interscholastic competition teams in mediation, negotiations and client counseling. Currently, he serves as Director of the
Fowler School of Law Mediation Clinic
. After receiving his B.A. from Brigham Young University, he received his JD from Chapman University Fowler School of Law. Professor Dowling also received a Master in Dispute Resolution (MDR) from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law. Prior to joining Chapman, Professor Dowling worked with the State and Local Tax group for PricewaterhouseCoopers from 2006 to 2008, resolving tax disputes.

Samuel Ernst
–
Promoted to Associate Professor of Law

Professor Ernst’s scholarship focuses on patent law, and he teaches in the areas of intellectual property, contracts and civil litigation practice. Prior to joining the Fowler School of Law in 2013, Professor Ernst was a partner at the international law firm of Covington & Burling in San Francisco, practicing intellectual property, commercial and appellate litigation, while maintaining an active pro bono practice focusing on veterans disability recovery and homeless advocacy. In 2010, Professor Ernst was recognized by the Federal Circuit Bar Association for his work on behalf of veterans. In 2006 and 2008, he received a Certificate of Excellence from the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. Prior to joining the Fowler School of Law, Professor Ernst taught pre-trial civil litigation at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Professor Ernst earned his JD
magna cum laude
from Georgetown University Law Center. He has a B.A. in Modern Literary Studies from UC Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from UCLA.

Carolyn Larmore
–
Promoted to Full Professor of the Practice of Law

Professor Larmore joined the faculty of Chapman University Fowler School of Law in 2005. She received her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in 1994, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and her JD from UCLA in 1997, graduating Order of the Coif and completing two externships, one with the Honorable John G. Davies, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and the other with the ACLU of Southern California. After graduating from law school, Professor Larmore joined the law firm of Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles as a litigation associate, and later Proskauer Rose LLP’s Labor & Employment department in its Los Angeles office. Professor Larmore then worked at the Disability Rights Legal Center at Loyola Law School, where she litigated cases under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other state and federal laws designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. She also supervised law students from around Southern California as part of the DRLC’s externship program.

As
Externship
Director at Chapman University Fowler School of Law, Professor Larmore supervises about 150 students per year as they work for judges, district attorneys and public defenders, government agencies, non-profits, in-house counsel departments and private law firms. She advises students on which placements would best meet their career and learning goals, helps them prepare for the externship experiences, and counsels them throughout the externship semester on how to succeed in their placements. She is also a regular presenter at national and regional externship and clinical academic conferences.

Mary Lee Ryan
–
Promoted to Full Professor of the Practice of Entertainment Law

Professor Ryan is an entertainment attorney with more than 25 years of experience in the domestic and international entertainment industries. While still a law student at New York University, she enjoyed teaching contract law and was awarded the Walter Derenberg Fellowship in Copyright Law. Following her passion for music and business, Professor Ryan moved to Los Angeles where she got her start in the entertainment industry negotiating media contracts as an associate for Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. In 1988, she joined Columbia and TriStar pictures in Burbank, where she negotiated music agreements for motion pictures and television shows, including the use of soundtracks, composers and publishing agreements. A year later, she joined Rondor Music International, Inc., where she was the Senior Vice President of Business Affairs. There, she negotiated major agreements, such as the sale of Rondor Music International, Inc. to Universal Music Group, which was reported by the
Wall Street Journal
to be a 400-500 million dollar transaction. In 2002, Professor Ryan went into private practice, working as an attorney and consultant to individuals and companies throughout the entertainment industry. She joined Fowler School of Law as a visiting assistant clinical professor in 2010.

Wendy Seiden
–
Promoted to Clinical Full Professor of Law

Before joining Chapman in the fall of 2010, Professor Seiden taught the mediation clinic as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Law. From 2006 to 2009, Professor Seiden served as a clinical fellow at the University of Baltimore School of Law and coordinated the UB Family Mediation Clinic from 2008 to 2009. Professor Seiden received her J.D.,
cum laude
, from Harvard Law School where she was an executive editor of the
Harvard Women’s Law Journal
and founded the Teen Violence Education Program. She received her A.B. degree from the University of Michigan, graduating
summa cum laude
. In 1993, Professor Seiden was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at the Universidad de Sevilla and in 2005 she was awarded a Rotary Alumni International Service to Humanity Award.

Professor Seiden began law practice as a Skadden Fellow at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco, where she co-founded the Teen Moms Shelter and represented children in a variety of legal forums. In 1998, Professor Seiden founded Advocacy for Children, Youth & Families, a small multi-forum legal services and advocacy office dedicated to children and adults in California’s foster care system. Professor Seiden served as a Juvenile Court Consultant for the Judicial Council of California in 2004. She was a founding member of the California State Task Force on the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment. Professor Seiden was a contributor to Jane C. Murphy and Robert Rubinson,
Family Mediation: Theory and Practice
(LexisNexis, 2009) and was the principal author of the ABA February 2009 Report on Child Victims of Crime Resolution. Professor Seiden has presented papers and taught skills at national conferences, primarily focusing on child welfare, domestic violence and crime victims’ rights.

George Willis
–
Promoted to Clinical Full Professor of Law

Professor George Willis is the Director of the
Tax Law Clinic
and the Administrator of the law school’s Graduate Tax Programs including the LL.M. in Taxation. He earned his B.S. degree in Finance from California State University, Long Beach and earned his JD degree from Chapman University Fowler School of Law.

He has achieved numerous advanced certifications in varied areas of development. Professor Willis primarily teaches tax law clinic courses in which students represent taxpayers on a pro bono basis before the IRS and in the U.S. Tax Court. He joined Chapman in 1999 after working in practice as a tax, business and estate planning attorney serving individuals and close corporations. Before opening his practice, he worked for the Internal Revenue Service, Estate and Gift Tax Division and at the First American Corporation under their general counsel. Prior to his legal career he was a Senior Engineer, working for nearly a decade with the Northrop-Grumman Corporation concentrating in special projects at their Advanced Systems (later called B-2) Division and other locations. He is a member of the ABA sections for Taxation and Probate & Real Property. As part of the Tax Section, he is actively involved with the committee for Low Income Taxpayers and serves as the moderator of their listserv. He is also a member of the California Bar Association Taxation section and the Orange County Bar Association sections on Estate Planning, Probate & Trusts, and Taxation. He has served as panelist and moderator at numerous ABA and IRS symposia. He also performs pro bono work as a member of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Pro Bono Panel, and as an attorney-volunteer for the Public Law Center in Orange County, California.