OU Law Professors Judith Maute and Lindsay Robertson Elected to American Law Institute

For Immediate Release

NORMAN - The American Law Institute (ALI) recently elected University of Oklahoma College of Law Professors Judith Maute and Lindsay Robertson to its distinguished membership. 

ALI is comprised of more than 4,000 lawyers, judges, and legal scholars who meet and discuss the state of the law and seek to improve it by drafting, reviewing and publishing restatements of the law, model statutes and principles of law. Judges and practicing attorneys utilize ALI publications on a daily basis.  

“We tend to want to improve the law as it applies in everyday life or in the courts,” ALI Deputy Director Stephanie Middleton said. For this reason, most ALI members have distinguished careers in the legal field, Middleton said, and many have a practical bent that provides them familiarity with the real world legal problems ALI seeks to solve.  

Maute is the William J. Alley Professor of Law, as well as the President’s Associates Presidential Professor. She teaches courses in professional responsibility, gender-based discrimination and feminist jurisprudence and writes and lectures on legal ethics, legal history, contracts and dispute resolution. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1978 and received her LL.M. from Yale University in 1982.

Maute is enthusiastic about working on a new ALI project to revise the Model Penal Code on Sexual Assault Crimes. “I am excited about working on this important issue from the ground up. It dovetails with my new service on the Board of Directors for Bethesda, Inc., which provides treatment to survivors of childhood sex abuse,” she said.

Robertson is the Judge Haskell A. Holloman Professor of Law and the Sam K. Viersen Jr. Presidential Professor. He teaches courses in federal Indian law, comparative indigenous peoples law, constitutional law and legal history. He holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Robertson is faculty director of the OU Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy and serves as special justice on the Supreme Court of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes.

Middleton indicated ALI is currently beginning a project on American Indian law. Due to Robertson’s expertise in this area, he may be able to provide valuable insight for this project, she said.