Law and Psychology Expert Named to Leadership Team of Arkansas Law Dean

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Don Judges, associate dean for graduate programs and experiential learning

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Dean Stacy L. Leeds of the University of Arkansas School of Law has appointed Donald P. Judges to serve on her administrative leadership team. Judges, the E.J. Ball Professor of Law, will serve as associate dean for graduate programs and experiential learning.

“I am grateful to professor Judges for accepting this role,” said Leeds. “We will rely on his leadership as the law school explores programmatic expansion to provide our students more skills-based opportunities including externships, clinical legal education and specialized graduate studies.”

Judges joins the senior administrative leadership team, where he will work with Carl Circo, senior associate dean; Steve Sheppard, associate dean for faculty development and research; and Jim Miller, associate dean for students.

“I am honored to be selected for this position and look forward to working with Dean Leeds and my fellow associate deans,” said Judges.

Judges joined the University of Arkansas faculty in 1989. His courses have included constitutional law, law and psychology, evidence, criminal procedure and torts. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from Johns Hopkins University. He graduated with highest honors in 1983 from the University of Maryland School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Maryland Law Review. He clerked for Judge Alvin B. Rubin on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He then practiced law with Arnold & Porter, where he worked on securities litigation, Indian law, real estate, bankruptcy and legislative projects.

In 1999, Judges earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Tulsa. In addition to his role as law professor, he serves as reporter to the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Jury Instructions (Civil). He also has served as an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas and has worked with local law enforcement agencies in a variety of capacities.

His primary research interests involve the interdisciplinary application of psychological theory to substantive areas. He has published articles on the social psychology of capital punishment, eyewitness evidence, the psychology of risk preference and tort law, judicial selection, the Fifth Amendment, authoritarianism and freedom of expression, and affirmative action. He is the author of Hard Choices, Lost Voices, a book on the conflict over abortion rights.