Professor Nancy Welsh is Texas A&M University School of Law's newest member of the American Law Institute (ALI). ALI is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law, according to its website. Welsh is among the 36 members newly elected by her peers to the ALI in October.
Founded in 1923, the ALI is made up of judges, lawyers, and law professors "of the highest qualifications." The Institute drafts, discusses, revises, and publishes Restatements of the Law, Model Codes, and Principles of Law that are "enormously influential in the courts and legislatures, as well as in legal scholarship and education."
To promote law reform, the ALI elects individuals who "reflect the excellence and diversity of today's legal profession." The Institute’s work allows its distinguished members to "influence the development of the law in both existing and emerging areas, to work with other eminent lawyers, judges, and academics, to give back to a profession to which they are deeply dedicated, and to contribute to the public good."
Welsh joins 12 Texas A&M Law colleagues who currently are ALI members:
- Robert Ahdieh, Dean
- Irene Calboli
- Susan Fortney
- Paul George
- Randy Gordon
- Michael Green
- Bill Henning
- Glynn Lunney
- Andrew Morriss
- Meg Penrose
- Huyen Pham
- Peter Yu
According to the ALI, institute membership is a distinct professional honor, and the total number of elected members is limited to 3,000.
"By bringing together eminent judges, highly accomplished practicing lawyers, and top scholars, ALI has earned a uniquely trusted reputation for work that is of the highest quality and integrity."
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said at the 2002 ALI annual meeting, "This is the most prestigious legal group in the United States. The American Law Institute is the leading institution in forming written expression of legal principles that have evolved in many areas of the law."
Nancy A. Welsh is Professor of Law and Director of the Dispute Resolution Program at Texas A&M University School of Law. In 2016-2017, she was Chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution. She served previously as Chair of the AALS Alternative Dispute Resolution Section.
Professor Welsh is a leading scholar and teacher of dispute resolution and procedural law. She examines negotiation, mediation, arbitration, judicial settlement, and dispute resolution in U.S. and international contexts, focusing on self-determination, procedural justice, due process, and institutionalization dynamics. Professor Welsh has written more than 60 articles and chapters that have appeared in law reviews, professional publications and books, is co-author of the 4th, 5th and 6th editions of DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND LAWYERS, and is co-editor of the forthcoming book, EVOLUTION OF A FIELD: PERSONAL HISTORIES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION. In 2006, she conducted research in the Netherlands as a Fulbright Scholar and taught at Tilburg University.
In 2016, she was named a Visiting Scholar of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and a Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Indiana University Bloomington. In 2018, the Texas Bar Foundation selected her article, "Do You Believe in Magic?: Self-Determination and Procedural Justice Meet Inequality in Court-Connected Mediation," for its Outstanding Law Journal Article Award. Her article, "The Thinning Vision of Self-Determination in Court-Connected Mediation: The Inevitable Price of Institutionalization?," was recognized as the third most-cited article of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review in its first 10 years of publication. With Professor Joseph Stulberg, she succeeded Harvard Law Professor Frank Sander as Co-Chair of the Editorial Board of the Dispute Resolution Magazine.
Before joining Texas A&M, she was Professor of Law and William Trickett Faculty Scholar at Penn State University, Dickinson School of Law, receiving the Teaching Excellence Award in 2010. She also was Executive Director of the Minnesota non-profit Mediation Center and practiced corporate litigation with the Minneapolis law firm of Leonard, Street and Deinard. She earned her B.A. magna cum laude from Allegheny College and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.