Dean Cynthia E. Nance, Patron Fellow, was announced as the 2026 recipient of the Robert J. Kutak Award from the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Kutak Committee. The award honors an individual who has made significant contributions to the collaboration of the legal academy, the bench, and the bar, in honor of Mr. Kutak, who was a respected Omaha lawyer, who was committed to legal reform and a strong advocate for legal education.
Dean Nance currently serves as Dean and Nathan G. Gordon Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law, a role she has been in twice, from 2006 to 2011 and again from 2022 to 2026. She has also long been involved in the ABA and the ABF, serving on the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, in the Board of Governors and as a member of the House of Delegates; she previously served as the National Fellows Chair from 2021-2022. She also spent time as the chair of the Association of American Law Schools Sections on Labor and Employment Law and Employment Discrimination and is the first woman of color to serve as President of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.
In 2023 Dean Nance received the 2023 Association of American Law Schools’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award and has received both the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award in 2018 and the Spirit of Excellence Award in 2012 from the ABA. She has demonstrated a strong commitment to expanding access to legal education, as she endowed the Eual Dean and Fern Nance Scholarship at the University of Arkansas School of Law in honor of her parents and established the Dennis Shields Scholarship at the University of Iowa College of Law, recognizing the admissions leader who first opened the door to her legal education.
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