John Nussbaumer
Associate Dean, Auburn Hills Campus and Professor
B.A. Denison University 1973
J.D. University of Michigan 1976
Dean Nussbaumer is a professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School and the Associate Dean in charge of Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus. He is a 1976 honors graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.
Before joining the Thomas Cooley faculty in 1984, he served as a law clerk to former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary S. Coleman, and as an assistant public defender for the State Appellate Defender Office. While at the Appellate Defender Office, he successfully argued cases before the Michigan Court of Appeals, the Michigan Supreme Court, the Sixth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
Since then he has served as the Reporter for the Michigan Criminal Jury Instruction Committee, Co-Reporter for the Sixth Circuit Pattern Federal Criminal Jury Instruction Committee, Co-Chair of the State Bar of Michigan’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, Chair of the Oakland County Bar Association Diversity Committee, member of the American Bar Association Section of Legal Education Diversity Committee, and member of the ABA Council on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline.
He currently serves as a gubernatorial appointee to and the chair of the Michigan Appellate Defender Commission, a Michigan Supreme Court appointee to the Michigan Criminal Procedure Rules Committee, Co-Chair of the Eastern District of Michigan Federal Bar Association Pro Bono Committee, member of the State Bar of Michigan ADR Diversity Task Force, member of the State Bar of Michigan Pro Bono Month Planning Committee, member of the Michigan Supreme Court’s SOS Task Force on Self-Represented Litigants, member of the Oakland County Bar Association Inn of Court, member of the Michigan Campaign for Justice Public Defender Reform Initiative, an elected executive board member of the Federal Bar Association, and an elected board member of the Straker Bar Association.
He is a pro bono volunteer for Cooley Law School’s Service-to-Soldiers and Senior Pro Bono Outreach programs, and helped then State Bar President Edward H. Pappas launch the first ever State Bar Professionalism Orientation program in May 2009 at Cooley’s Auburn Hills campus.
He has written extensively on the subject of misuse and over-reliance on the LSAT in law school admissions and accreditation practices, including Misuse of the Law School Admissions Test, Racial Discrimination, and the De Facto Quota System for Restricting African-American Access to the Legal Profession, 80 St. John’s Law Review 167 (Winter 2006), and The Disturbing Correlation Between ABA Accreditation Review and Declining African-American Law School Enrollment, 80 St. John’s Law Review 991 (Summer 2006). His latest article, The Door to Law School, co-authored with Cooley Professor E. Christopher Johnson, Jr., was the lead article in the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Law Journal symposium issue on trends and issues in education and the law, 6 U. Mass. Roundtable Symp. L.J. 1 (2011).
He has presented his research findings on this subject at the National Bar Association’s 2006 and 2007 National Conventions, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 2007 Annual Legislative Conference, the American Constitution Society’s 2007 National Press Club briefing, the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Schools, the 2009 St. John’s University Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights Symposium, the 2010 ABA Annual Meeting, and the 2010 National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference. He has been quoted on this subject in the New York Times, USA Today, and Michigan Lawyers Weekly.
He has helped develop high school law-related education programs at Pontiac High School, helped launch the first ABA Council of Legal Education Opportunity College Prelaw Summer Institute in Michigan, helped launch the first Just the Beginning Foundation High School Summer Legal Institute in Michigan, and has spoken on law-related education programs at the State Bar of Michigan’s 2010 and 2011 Bar Leadership Forums on Mackinac Island.
He is the recipient of the National Bar Association’s 2007 Presidential Award, the ABA Council of Legal Education Opportunity 2008 Legacy Justice Academia Achievement Award, and the 2010 State Bar of Michigan Champion of Justice Award. He is one of five Cooley Law School recipient of a major State Bar of Michigan Award, following E. Christopher Johnson, Jr. (2009 Champion of Justice Award), Joan Vestrand (2008 Champion of Justice Award), and Nelson Miller (2005 John W. Cummiskey Pro Bono Award), and followed by Monica Nuckolls (2011 Champion of Justice Award).
Bibliography
Articles
John Nussbaumer & Chris Johnson, The Door to Law School, 6 U. Mass. Roundtable Symp. L.J. 1 (2011).
John Nussbaumer, The Disturbing Correlation between ABA Accreditation Review and Declining African-American Law School Enrollment, 80 St. John's L. Rev. 991 (2006).
John Nussbaumer, Misuse of the Law School Admissions Test, Racial Discrimination, and the De Facto Quota System for Restricting African-American Access to the Legal Profession, 80 St. John’s L. Rev. 167 (2006).
John Nussbaumer, Police Inspections of Discarded Trash after California v. Greenwood, 15 Search & Seizure L. Rpt. 57 (Sept. 1988).
John Nussbaumer, Foreward, Criminal Law Symposium, Convicting the Guilty and Acquitting the Innocent: Impediments to the Search for Truth, 4 Cooley L. Rev. 491 (1987).
John Nussbaumer, Criminal Procedure, Annual Survey of Michigan Law: June 1, 1984—May 31, 1985, 32 Wayne L. Rev. 427 (1986).
Books and Chapters in Books
Nussbaumer, John, and Kevin D. Hill. Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions. Prepared by the Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions of the District Judges Association of the Sixth Circuit. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1991.
Nussbaumer, John. Michigan Criminal Law BarBri Bar Review Materials. New York: Harcourt, 1988 Supplement.
Nussbaumer, John R. Michigan Criminal Jury Instructions. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute of Continuing Legal Education, 1987 Supplement.
Nussbaumer, John R. Michigan Criminal Jury Instructions. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute of Continuing Legal Education, 1986 Supplement.
Nussbaumer, John R., and David M. Lawson. “Criminal Discovery.” In Discovery Practice: A Guide for Michigan Lawyers, edited by Bruce T. Wallace and Mary R. Minnet, 313-418. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute of Continuing Legal Education, 1986.
Book Reviews and Other Short Works
Victoria A. Roberts & John R. Nussbaumer, Progress Report on the SBM Pledge to Achieve Diversity and Inclusion, 91 Mich. B.J. 20 (Jan. 2012).
Alana M. Glass & John R. Nussbaumer, Expanding the Pipeline to the Profession, 531 Laches (publication of the Oakland County Bar Association) 9 (Sept. 2010).
John R. Nussbaumer, Changes Need to Be Made in Admissions to Grow Diversity in the Law Profession, 24 Mich. Laws. Wkly. 4 (Nov. 23, 2009).
John R. Nussbaumer, Diversity: The Long View, 522 Laches (publication of the Oakland County Bar Association) 9 (Oct. 2009).
John Nussbaumer, Introducing Cooley Law School, 489 Laches (publication of the Oakland County Bar Association) 15 (Oct. 2006).
John Nussbaumer, "Knock, Knock." "Who's There?" Must Police Knock and Announce Themselves before Entering a Home to Execute a Search Warrant? 1994-95 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 294.
John Nussbaumer, Can Federal Felons Possess Firearms if States Restore Their Civil Rights? 1993-94 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 229.
John Nussbaumer, Working the Buses: Close Encounters of the Third Kind? 1990-91 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 225.
John Nussbaumer, Supreme Court Roundup, AALS Crim. Just. Sec. Newsltr. (June 1990).
John Nussbaumer, Vehicle Inventories: Can the Police be Given the Discretion to Decide the Scope of the Search? 1989-90 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 148.
John Nussbaumer, Does the Fourth Amendment Extend across the Border? 1989-90 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 74.
John Nussbaumer, Is Stopping a Fleeing Felon with a “Deadman” Roadblock a Seizure under the Fourth Amendment? 1988-89 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 204.
John Nussbaumer, Significant United States Supreme Court Criminal Procedure Decisions 1987-88 Term (pt. 2), 2 Colleague 1 (Jan. 1989).
John Nussbaumer, Significant United States Supreme Court Criminal Procedure Decisions 1987-88 Term (pt. 1), 1 Colleague 30 (Oct. 1988).
John Nussbaumer, Aerial Police Surveillance: Are Helicopters Different? 1988-89 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 1.
John Nussbaumer, When Worlds of Precedent Collide: Home Privacy v. Fourth Amendment Balancing, 1986-87 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 403.
John Nussbaumer, Garbage: Abandoned Property or Protected Papers and Effects? 1986-87 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 327.
John Nussbaumer, Bagscam, Criminal Contempt and the Judicial Appointment of Private Prosecutors, 1986-87 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 265.
John Nussbaumer, Police Trespassing: How Far Does the Curtilage of a Ranch House Extend? 1986-87 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 183.
John Nussbaumer, Aerial Police Surveillance: Is Your Backyard Part of Your Castle? 1985-86 Preview U.S. S. Ct. Cases 177.
Other Writings
Amicus Curiae Br. of the Natl. Leg. Aid and Defender Assn., the Mound City B. Assn., the Jackson Co. B. Assn., the Natl. Black Police Assn., the Natl. Assn. of Crim. Def. Laws., the Natl. Conf. of Black Laws., the Natl. B. Assn., and the S. Christian Leadership Conf., State v. Kinder, 942 S.W.2d 313 (Mo. 1996).
Amicus Curiae Br. of the Natl. Leg. Aid and Defender Assn. and the R.I. Assn. of Crim. Def. Laws., In re Advisory Op. to the Gov., 666 A.2d 813 (R.I. 1995).
John Nussbaumer, Recent Developments in Michigan Law (Wayne County Criminal Advocacy Program 1994).
John Nussbaumer & William P. Weiner, Recent Developments in Michigan Law (Wayne County Criminal Advocacy Program 1993).
John Nussbaumer & Ronald J. Bretz, Recent Developments in Michigan Law (Wayne County Criminal Advocacy Program 1992).
John Nussbaumer, Report to the Michigan Supreme Court on Criminal Discovery Rules (Michigan Supreme Court 1990).
John Nussbaumer & David M. Lawson, Building a Criminal Law Practice (Institute of Continuing Legal Education 1987).
Presentations
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, National Minority Graduate and Enrollment Leaders (American Bar Association Council for Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Educational Pipeline, American Bar Association 2010 Midyear Meeting, Orlando, Florida, Feb. 5, 2010).
John Nussbaumer, Panel Remarks, Progress? The Academy, the Profession, Race and Gender: Empirical Findings, Research Issues, Potential Projects and Funding Opportunities: Updated 2007 CBC Annual Legislative Conference Research Findings on Minority Law School Enrollment (Association of American Law Schools 2009 Annual Meeting, San Diego, California, Jan. 7, 2009).
John Nussbaumer, Moderator, Judicial Decision-Making Philosophy (65th Annual Meeting of the State Bar of Michigan, Appellate Practice Section, Detroit, Michigan, Sept. 22, 2000) (recorded by Crane Video Services, distributed by the State Bar of Michigan, copy on file with Thomas M. Cooley Law School faculty archives collection) (videocassette).
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, Recent Developments in Michigan Criminal Law and Procedure (Wayne County Criminal Advocacy Program, Detroit, Michigan, 1991).
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, Recent Developments in Michigan Criminal Law and Procedure (Wayne County Criminal Advocacy Program, Detroit, Michigan, 1990).
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, Michigan Rules of Criminal Procedure (Michigan Judicial Institute, 1989).
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, Michigan Criminal Jury Instructions (Michigan Judicial Institute, 1987).
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, Michigan Criminal Jury Instructions (Michigan Judges Association, 1986).
John Nussbaumer, Presentation, State Constitutional Analysis of Search and Seizure Problems (Michigan Judicial Institute, 1985).
John Nussbaumer, Oral Argument, Recording of the Oral Arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Case Koehler v. Engle (Washington, D.C., Feb. 28, 1984) (copy on file with the National Archives and Thomas M. Cooley Law School faculty archives collection) (cassette tape).
