In July 2016, Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law’s Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, Donald Kochan, was appointed by the American Law Institute (ALI) to serve as one of a select group of Advisers for the Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property – one of the most recent restatement projects initiated by ALI (launched in early 2015).  One of the primary missions of ALI involves this important process of drafting and publishing restatements of the law which are intended as guidance “primarily addressed to courts. They aim at clear formulations of common law and its statutory elements or variations and reflect the law as it presently stands or might appropriately be stated by a court.”

Dean Kochan was elected as a member of ALI in January 2016.  ALI is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law.  Its membership is comprised of eminent judges, lawyers and law professors elected by their peers on the basis of professional achievement and demonstrated interest in improving the law. The institute’s elected membership is limited to 3,000.

Dean Kochan received the 2014 Valerie Scudder Award from Chapman University, a merit-based award selected by peers in recognition of outstanding achievement in scholarship, teaching and service, and one of the highest honors given to a faculty member at the University. Also in 2014 he was elected as a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

This new Adviser position adds to an impressive list of scholarship, service, and law-development activities in which Dean Kochan currently holds a leadership role.  Particularly as related to property, for example, he currently is a Contributing Editor of the “Keeping Current-Property” section of Probate & Property, the bi-monthly magazine of the Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association; serves as the Chair-Elect for the Section on Property Law for the Association of American Law Schools; serves on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group; serves as an inaugural Co-Editor of the Property Section of JOTWELL; and recently completed service as a Lone Mountain Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana.

This year, Dean Kochan will be teaching the first year Property course and upper-level courses in Real Estate Transactions and in Administrative Law & Practice.