When 3L Ryan Distaso first came to Michigan Law, he was a self-described “AI Luddite” and possessed a healthy skepticism about artificial intelligence. Intent on demystifying the technology, Distaso turned to AI Sandbox, a Law School class taught by Patrick Barry, clinical assistant professor of law and director of digital academic initiatives.
As society pieces together how artificial intelligence (AI) fits into the education puzzle, Professor Nicholson Price invites Michigan Law students to wrestle with questions of how the law shapes AI and how AI shapes the law.
On July 1, the Law School welcomed its 19th dean, Neel U. Sukhatme—the first fully external dean in Michigan Law’s 166-year history. Sukhatme is an interdisciplinary empirical scholar whose research focuses on crime, intellectual property, voting rights, and AI and the law, among other areas. He joined the Law School from Georgetown University Law Center, where in addition to his faculty titles, he served as associate dean for research and academic programs and co-directed the Georgetown Law and Economics Workshop series.
In 2022, Eddie Mears, ’16, discovered a box of his late grandmother’s belongings in Flint, Michigan, that included a faded photograph of a young Chinese man standing beside her in front of the former Alpha Lambda Chinese fraternity in Ann Arbor. Mears’s quest to learn more took him on a multiyear, trans-Pacific sleuthing expedition.
Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, LLM ’98, grew up in a small town on the savannah grasslands of northeast Ghana. As a shepherd in his youth, he did not consider formal education an option until an unexpected encounter led him to enter school at 11 years old. In the years since, Ayine has risen to the highest levels of the Ghanaian government, first as a member of parliament and now as attorney general and minister for justice.
The concept of “abundance” has gained considerable traction in academic and policy circles. Michigan Law Professors Nicholas Bagley and Alexandra Klass are both active in the abundance movement, and they sat down recently to discuss the topic.
A new fellowship at Michigan Law will help fund important postgraduate opportunities for masters of law students, while honoring a longtime champion of international students. The Virginia Gordan LLM Public Service Fellowship is named for the first assistant dean for international affairs at Michigan Law.
In 1995, John Nannes, ’73, had an idea. Today, that idea—the Nannes 3L Challenge—continues to provide annual support to student organizations while fostering connections between classmates and bolstering philanthropy at Michigan Law.
Knox recently gave $200,000 to the Law School in honor of his father, William W. Knox, ’35, using two Charitable Gift Annuities (CGAs), a type of legacy gift. The gift establishes the Honorable William W. Knox Family Endowed Scholarship Fund.
Arn Tellem, ’79, and his wife, Nancy Tellem, established the Arn Tellem Faculty Research Support Fund in 1999. They amended it in July 2025 by adding $500,000 and renaming the fund to the Arn and Nancy Tellem Faculty Support Fund.
