UW Names Interim College of Law Dean

November 7, 2013

A graduate of Laramie High School, Stanford University and the University of Chicago Law School, who has served as an associate dean in the University of Wyoming College of Law since 2010, has been named interim dean of the UW law school.

Jacquelyn Bridgeman accepted the appointment from Dick McGinity, UW’s interim vice president for academic affairs.

“I am confident she will do a terrific job in providing strong leadership for the College of Law at this critical time,” McGinity says. “She is a strategic thinker who has a great perspective on the short-term and long-term needs of the college and its students.”

Bridgeman has been a member of the UW College of Law faculty since 2002. She became associate dean of academic affairs in October 2010 and was named associate dean of program development and Kepler Professor of Law in August 2013.

Matt Wilson, the College of Law’s associate dean for academic affairs, also will provide leadership for the law school while a nationwide search is conducted for a permanent dean.

“These two fine professionals have given every indication they will work well together for the benefit of the college and the university,” McGinity says. “I look forward to working closely with them.”

Before coming to UW, Bridgeman was an associate attorney at the Los Angeles law firms of Curiale, Dellaverson, Hirschfeld, Kraemer & Sloan, and Loeb & Loeb, where she specialized in a wide range of labor and employment matters.

She received her bachelor’s degree with honors in African/American studies and anthropology/social sciences in 1996 from Stanford University, where she competed in track and field. She earned her law degree from the University of Chicago in 1999.

Bridgeman is a 1992 graduate of Laramie High School, where she lettered in four sports and won multiple state championships in track and field. She and her husband, Steven Birdsley, have two children. She is a member of the Wyoming Center for Legal Aid board and the Wyoming Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She coaches youth basketball in Laramie.

At UW, she received the John P. Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award in 2008 and was named the College of Law’s outstanding faculty member in 2004-05. She served on the Martin Luther King Days of Dialogue planning committee from 2002 to 2006 and chaired the group from 2003 to 2006.

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