Five Faculty Members Retire After Storied Careers

On Friday, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law held a celebration for the retirement of five faculty members. After decades of service to the Law School, Herbert Beller, professor of practice; Allan Horwich, professor of practice; Ellen Mulaney, senior lecturer; and Laurie Mikva, clinical assistant professor of law, all stepped down at the end of the 2022-2023 academic year. Carole Silver, professor of global law and practice emerita, concluded her professorship at the end of the 2021-2022 academic year.

The retirees collectively dedicated more than a century to legal education and the legal profession, shaping student experiences, serving clients in the Bluhm Legal Clinic, and contributing to the mission and the future of the Law School.

In her remarks, Dean Osofsky thanked all the retired faculty for their presence at the Law School. “The retiring faculty that we are celebrating and honoring today have made significant contributions to the Law School, the profession, and society,” said Dean Osofsky. “We are extremely grateful for the difference that they have made and continue to make, and are very glad to have them remain part of our community, with many of them continuing to engage in impactful teaching and research.”

Herbert Beller

Professor of Practice

Beller has practiced tax law for over fifty years, focusing on corporate tax both in the planning context and in the litigation context. He’s a double wildcat, holding both his undergraduate and law degrees from Northwestern; he’s also a CPA. While practicing in Washington, D.C., he was initially recruited to teach in Georgetown’s tax program in 1972, but the Law School managed to recruit him back to Chicago in 2009, where he has taught across the tax curriculum. He’s a devoted institutional citizen who has served on the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council, the chair of the ABA’s Section of Taxation, and the co-chair of the National Conference of Lawyers and CPAs. He has published numerous articles on substantive areas of tax law, and has written and lectured on the synergy between tax in the academic context and his commitment to serving the profession.

Allan Horwich

Professor of Practice

Horwich is an accomplished securities litigator with ArentFox Schiff who has represented numerous major companies and others for over fifty years. He has expertise in insider trading, having published numerous articles on the topic. He has advised corporations, financial institutions, investors, securities professionals, and boards of directors on a wide range of disclosure, corporate governance, corporate compliance, fiduciary duty, and insider trading questions. During his career he has litigated cases, including individual, class actions, and derivative claims, throughout the country under all of the federal securities laws,  and has represented clients in Securities and Exchange Commission investigations and proceedings. At the Law School, Horwich has served as a professor of practice for 24 years. He’s taught courses in securities regulation and litigation, insider trading, business associations, and similar corporate law courses.

Ellen Mulaney

Senior Lecturer

Mulaney has taught numerous classes across our school since 2006, including such diverse offerings as torts, legislation, communication and legal reasoning, contract drafting, and legal ethics. She’s a much-loved professor who has won numerous teaching awards during her time at the Law School. She’s also an expert in child welfare law and ethics and has consulted for the state of Illinois, written a code of child welfare practice adopted by the state, and written several texts on the subject.

Laurie Mikva

Clinical Assistant Professor of Law

Mikva has been a devoted public interest lawyer since the mid-1980s, serving in numerous roles providing direct legal assistance to clients in need, including as a public defender and as a legal aid lawyer with a focus in family law. In recognition of her service, President Obama appointed her to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation in 2009. At the Law School, she has directed the Civil Litigation Clinic and has focused on the representation of tenants while training numerous law students to protect the critical interests of the less advantaged.

Carole Silver

Professor of Global Law and Practice Emertia

Silver has served on the Law School faculty from 1998 until her retirement last year, except for brief sojourns at Indiana University and Georgetown. An expert in both business law and the legal profession, she has taught business associations, securities regulation, conflict of laws, and legal ethics. However, the primary thrust of her work has been in studying the globalization of the legal profession, a subject on which she has published numerous articles. At the Law School, she’s also put this expertise into practice, leading Executive LLM programs focused on global engagement. She is an expert on the empirical study of the legal profession, and while at Indiana directed the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, the leading study of students’ experiences of legal education. Her expertise in global law practice led her to serve on the groundbreaking Ethics 20/20 Commission of the American Bar Association.