UNIFORM LAW COMMISSION
111 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1010, Chicago, IL 60602
312-450-6600, www.uniformlaws.org
Contact: Katie Robinson, ULC Communications Officer, katie.robinson@uniformlaws.org
For Immediate Release:
MINNESOTA JUDGE CHAIRS NATIONAL LAW GROUP’S EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Harriet Lansing will serve 2-year term as Chair of Uniform Law Commission’s Executive Committee
August 12, 2011 – Harriet Lansing, a senior appeals court judge in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been appointed to serve a two-year term as Chair of the Executive Committee of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC). Lansing was appointed Chair of the Executive Committee at the 120th Annual Meeting of the Uniform Law Commission which recently concluded in Vail, Colorado. The Executive Committee is the governing body of the ULC, and is responsible for implementing the policies adopted by the ULC at its meetings.
Founded in 1892, the ULC is an organization comprising more than 350 practicing attorneys, judges, law professors, legislators and other state officials – all lawyers – appointed by every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to draft and promote enactment of uniform laws that are designed to solve problems common to all the states. Commissioners donate their time as a pro bono public service.
At the 120th Annual Meeting of the ULC, four new uniform acts were approved: the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act; the Uniform Certificate of Title Act for Vessels; the Harmonized Uniform Business Organizations Code; and the Model Protection of Charitable Assets Act.
Lansing has been a member of the ULC since 1993. As a Minnesota uniform law commissioner, Judge Lansing has served on numerous drafting committees, including the committee to revise the Uniform Certification of Questions of Law Act, the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act, and the Uniform Limited Partnership Act. She currently serves on the Drafting Committee for the Uniform International Choice of Court Agreements Act, and is a member of the Joint Editorial Board for International Law and the International Legal Developments Committee. Judge Lansing just completed a two-year term as Chair of the ULC Scope and Program Committee, the committee which recommends the study and drafting projects which the ULC should undertake.
Lansing was first appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 1983 and served as a full time judge until the end of May 2011. Before her nearly twenty-eight years on the Court of Appeals, she served on the Ramsey County trial court bench for five years. She also served as St. Paul City Attorney from 1976-1978 and as a private practitioner in a St. Paul law firm before her appointment as city attorney. She received her B.A. from Macalester College and her J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School. Judge Lansing has been an active participant in legal education, serving as an adjunct professor in the Minnesota law schools and also as an adjunct professor in the Judicial Appellate Institute at New York University Law School. She has received distinguished service awards from educational, legal, and social organizations, most recently the 2011 Advocate Award from the Minnesota State Bar Association Civil Law Section and the Rosalie Wahl Judicial Excellence Award from the Executive Council of the Minnesota State Bar Association Public Law Section.
Uniform law commissioners come together as the Uniform Law Commission once a year to study and consider drafts of specific statutes in areas of the law where uniformity between the states is desirable. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, former U.S. Supreme Court Justices Louis Brandeis and David Souter, and former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, have all served as uniform law commissioners. Since its inception in 1892, the ULC has promulgated more than 200 uniform acts, among them such bulwarks of state statutory law as the Uniform Commercial Code, the Uniform Probate Code, the Uniform Partnership Act, the Uniform Securities Act, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, and the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act.
Further information on the Uniform Law Commission can be found at the ULC’s website at www.uniformlaws.org.
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