Pitt School of Law Professors Arthur D. Hellman and Welsh S. White Named to New Chairs Created Through the Bequest of the Late Christopher C. Walthour Jr.

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh has named School of Law Professors Arthur D. Hellman and Welsh S. White inaugural holders of two new endowed chairs created through the generous bequest of the late Christopher C. Walthour Jr.

Walthour was a Pitt law school alumnus and former Westmoreland County attorney and bank president. Hellman holds the Sally Ann Semenko Endowed Chair, named for Walthour's fiancée, who passed away while he was serving in the U.S. military in Japan during World War II; White holds the Bessie McKee Walthour Endowed Chair, named for Walthour's mother.

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg appointed the professors to their new positions, effective Feb. 1, upon the recommendations of law school Dean David Herring and Pitt Provost James V. Maher. In doing so, Nordenberg noted that "elevation to a named professorship constitutes one of the highest honors that any university can bestow upon a member of its faculty. In these cases, this special form of recognition is very well deserved. Professors Hellman and White have been academic stars here at Pitt for decades."

"The elevation of already-senior members of the faculty to endowed chairs is an important development in the law school. It allows us to recognize outstanding scholars and teachers and provide them with support to continue and enhance their groundbreaking work. These appointments are well deserved and everyone in the law school community is extremely proud of our colleagues, Arthur and Welsh," said Herring.

Walthour—who worked in the law firm established by his father, the late Christopher C. Walthour Sr.—also served as president of Manor National Bank for more than 50 years; he died Aug. 15, 2003, at age 86 and left his entire estate to the Pitt law school. Walthour earned two Pitt degrees: the Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 1939 and the Bachelor of Laws degree in 1942.

Hellman is nationally recognized as a leading scholar of the federal courts; he has also been an active participant in numerous institutional enterprises aimed at improving the administration of justice, at both the state and federal levels. His empirical studies on the operation of precedent in the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals have been used as a basis for policy decisions both by Congress and the federal judiciary. In 1999, Hellman was appointed to serve on a special Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Evaluation Committee that examined all aspects of the court's operations; Hellman was the only academic on the committee.

Hellman is the author of several books, including Restructuring Justice: The Innovations of the Ninth Circuit and the Future of the Federal Courts (Cornell University Press, 1990) and The First Amendment: Cases, Materials, and Problems (Lexis Publishing Co., 2002). A new casebook, Federal Courts: Cases and Materials on Judicial Federalism and the Lawyering Process (coauthored with Dean Lauren Robel of Indiana University School of Law), is scheduled for publication by LexisNexis Publishing in the spring of 2005.

Hellman has testified as an invited witness at numerous hearings of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and received public recognition from leading members of the House Judiciary Committee for his work in helping to draft the Judicial Improvements Act of 2002.

White is the author of three books on capital punishment, among them The Death Penalty in the Nineties: An Examination of the Modern System of Capital Punishment (University of Michigan Press, 1991), as well as numerous essays and scholarly articles on evidence and criminal procedure. His scholarly articles have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Review, among others.

White has spent the last 10 years studying police interrogations and confessions. In his book Miranda's Waning Protections: Police Interrogation Practices after Dickerson (University of Michigan Press, 2001), White examines Miranda—the U.S. Supreme Court case that established rights of suspects upon arrest—and other Supreme Court confession cases, emphasizing the conflict between law enforcement and civil liberties. He is at work on a new book on capital punishment and plans to complete a new edition of Criminal Procedure: Constitutional Constraints Upon Investigation and Proof (Matthew Bender 2d ed., 1994), coauthored with Professor James Tomkovicz, professor of law at the University of Iowa College of Law.

While teaching full-time in the law school, White has represented or assisted in the representation of indigent defendants, particularly in capital cases.

Both White and Hellman have been quoted extensively as legal experts by major national print news media.

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