University of Denver Sturm College of Law names José Roberto Juárez, Jr. to dean post Juárez is DU’s first Hispanic law dean

May 15, 2006

The University of Denver today announced the appointment of José Roberto (Beto) Juárez, Jr. as the new dean of the Sturm College of Law, effective July 1, 2006. Juárez, the first Hispanic dean in the history of the DU law school, currently is a professor of law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio. The appointment concludes a nationwide search that attracted close to 40 applicants.

“With a host of new faculty members added during the past few years, a new building, the wonderful naming gift from Donald and Susan Sturm and the development of the Nanda Center for International Law supported by a generous gift from Doug and Mary Scrivner, the Sturm College of Law is poised for a major leap forward in quality and stature,” says Chancellor Robert D. Coombe. “Beto Juárez is the right person to lead the college to the realization of that goal.”

“One of my priorities during the first year is to get out there and meet as many people as I can,” Juárez says. “Alumni, of course, but also lawyers who are not alumni of the University of Denver who understand what a tremendous asset it is to have the University of Denver Sturm College of Law as part of the community.”

Juárez has been at St. Mary’s since 1990, and served as associate dean for academic & student affairs from 1997-1999. In that role, he administered academic programs, prepared the proposed law school budget and was responsible for student academic and disciplinary appeals. He supervised the law school staff, chaired the bar examination committee and directed a bar examination passage study.

A professor of law at St. Mary’s University since 1990, he has taught courses in Civil Procedure, Civil Rights, Conflict of Laws, Federal Courts, Professional Responsibility, and Remedies, as well as a seminar on Language Rights. He also has co-taught undergraduate courses on Mexican Americans and the Law. His research interests include employment discrimination, language rights, legal history, race, and religion and the law.

He served as a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Oregon Law School during the 2001-2002 academic year, and was an associate professor of law at the Council on Legal Educational Opportunity Institute at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law during the Summer of 1991.

Previously, Dean-Designate Juárez spent three years at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in Los Angeles as Regional Counsel and Employment Program Director. He also spent four years as a staff attorney in MALDEF’s San Antonio office. MALDEF is a national civil rights law firm. In LA, MALDEF’s largest regional office, he supervised a staff of 13, including five attorneys. He also supervised employment discrimination litigation brought by attorneys in five regional offices nationwide.

He began his career as a staff attorney for the Gulf Coast Legal Foundation in Galveston, Texas, where he practiced poverty law, with an emphasis on family and housing law.

Juárez earned an A.B. degree in History from Stanford University and his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1981. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications, and has given scholarly presentations throughout the United States and Mexico. He chairs the Board of Directors of the Journal of Law and Religion, and served on that board since 2002. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Society of American Law Teachers, and served as Co-President from 2004-2006.