Law School Appoints New Dean

By Max B. Baker, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Jun. 1–FORT WORTH — Law school professor Cynthia Fountaine will temporarily take over as dean of the Texas Wesleyan School of Law today, succeeding Fred Slabach, who left to work for a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.

Fountaine, a professor at the law school since it opened its campus in downtown Fort Worth in 1997, recently spent the academic year at Washington & Lee University School of Law as a visiting professor. She has focused on civil procedure and civil rights law in the classroom.

“The faculty and the staff share an ambitious vision of what this law school can become, and I am confident that together we will build upon the successes that Texas Wesleyan has achieved over the last several years,” Fountaine said in a statement.

Texas Wesleyan’s is the youngest of the state’s nine law schools. It opened in 1992 and received full accreditation from the American Bar Association in 1999. It has about 410 full-time students in its day program and 250 part-time students in its evening program. The school’s graduates had an 82.5 percent passing rate on the state bar exam in February, ranking it fourth among the state’s law schools, behind the schools at Baylor, Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas.

After nine years as dean, Slabach left to become executive director of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, which awards scholarships for college students to attend graduate school in preparation for careers in government or elsewhere in public service.

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Max B. Baker, 817-390-7714 maxbaker@star-telegram.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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