Leflar Named Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor At University Of Arkansas School Of Law

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Robert B. Leflar has been appointed the Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law, Dean Robert Moberly announced.

The Arkansas Bar Foundation Professorship is awarded to a law school professor who demonstrates excellence in teaching and excellence in scholarship in Arkansas law. Additionally, the professorship honors a faculty member who has made significant contributions to serving the Bench and Bar of Arkansas.

Leflar's specialties are health law, products liability, bioethics and law, torts, contracts, and international comparative law. He joined the law faculty in 1982. He is also an adjunct professor of medical humanities at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, College of Medicine in Little Rock.

"I am delighted that we are able to recognize Rob's important contributions to the law school and the Arkansas Bar in this way," said Robert Moberly, dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law. "Throughout his teaching career at the University, he has written and engaged in public service on the state level in the fields of health law, environmental law, tort law, and state constitutional reform. His scholarly articles on health care at the end of life led to drafting work on behalf of an Arkansas Bar Association committee, and resulted in the adoption of legislative reform during the last session of the Arkansas General Assembly. His legislative drafting work has also become part of the state's environmental law."

The dean added that Leflar has also participated in efforts to rewrite the state constitution, as Reporter for Gov. Tucker's Special Study Committee on Constitutional Revision in 1995. Leflar also serves on three Arkansas Bar Association committees, on jurisprudence and law reform, health law, and torts.

"I am deeply grateful to the Arkansas Bar Foundation and to the law school for bestowing this honor on me," Leflar said. "I intend to do my best to be worthy of the distinction."

Leflar will spend this academic year at Harvard University and the University of Tokyo as a recipient of the prestigious Social Science Research Council’s Abe (pronounced "Ah-bay") Fellowship. He was awarded the highly competitive fellowship for his proposed project, "A Comparison of Health Care Quality Control Structures in Japan and the U.S."

Leflar has previously had two fellowships abroad as a Fulbright Scholar (Japan, 1988-89) and as a Japan Foundation Fellow (Japan, 1992).

He leaves for the Harvard School of Public Health in September and will then be at the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law the first seven months of 2001. He will return to the U of A druing the fall of 2001.