Law school alumni receive highest honor

Six law school graduates will receive the Maurer School of Law’s highest honor by being inducted into the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows.

Samuel Dargan, Francina Dlouhy, Robert Long, Arthur Lotz, Lloyd Milliken Jr. and Milton Stewart are this year’s inductees. Candidates are eligible for nomination upon graduation from IU’s law school and by demonstrating superior work in the field of law.

The inductees are nominated by friends, colleagues or fellow graduates and are then selected by an anonymous committee of 10 people within the law school.

The committee, chosen by Law School Dean Lauren Robel, reviews the accomplishments of the nominees and reads over letters of support from the nominators.

“They are incredible, interesting people who are selected,” said Andrea Havill, the law school’s assistant dean for alumni relations. “I am amazed at what they have done.”

Previous honorees include federal judges, U.S. senators and managing partners of national law firms. There was one inductee, though, who said he found his accomplishments a little out of the ordinary for the award.

“I’m a little nontraditional for the award,” Lotz said. “I’m probably not the usual person to be inducted.”

Having been retired for 13 years, Lotz spent the majority of his professional life working to improve IU’s law school. He helped to establish the foundation of the school’s alumni and development programs, and the school’s Office of Alumni and Development was named after him.

Lotz said when he worked for the school, professors were doing an excellent job of teaching.

“We just did not have enough money to go far,” he said.

Lotz then helped to find sources for money, turning to alumni and starting an annual fund. He said he believes the reason he was inducted was for his work with the law school.

Lotz and his fellow inductees will be honored in April with a cocktail reception and dinner banquet with roughly 200 of the law school’s closest “friends,” made up of alumni and financial supporters, Havill said.

At the banquet, Dean Robel will speak about the achievements and the work that made these people perfect candidates to be inducted. She will then present them and induct them as new members of the Academy of Law Alumni Fellows.

After the alumni are inducted, pictures of them will be hung in the law school as a reminder of what they have achieved.

“It really allows the history to stay alive in the school,” Havill said. “They are a guiding light for the students. It shows them this is what they should be,” she said.