The American Bar Foundation has named Dean Emerita Rachel Moran, the Michael J. Connell distinguished professor of law at UCLA School of Law, as the Inaugural William H. Neukom Fellows Research Chair in Diversity and Law for 2015-16. In addition to continuing to serve on the UCLA Law faculty, she will co-direct a national research initiative, “The Future of Latinos in the United States: Law, Opportunity and Mobility,” with Robert L. Nelson, the foundation's outgoing director.
The Neukom Fellows Research Chair was established in 2014 by the foundation to spearhead empirical research on law and legal processes centered on issues of diversity and inequality that women, people of color, people with disabilities and persons from the LGBTQ community face in legal practice and before the law. Moran will begin a new research project on U.S. inequality, diversity, and the future of legal education and the legal profession, in addition to co-directing “The Future of Latinos in the United States” initiative.
Moran has been highly active in the legal community. In 2011, she was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise. She was also appointed as president of the Association of American Law Schools in 2009. She is a member of the American Law Institute and served on the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools. She also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Texas Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy;
In 2014, she was selected by American Bar Association President James R. Silkenat to serve on the association's Task Force on the Financing of Legal Education, and she was appointed to co-chair the American Bar Foundation’s Future of Latinos Project.
