University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Est. 1978

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UALR Law Review
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Little Rock, AR 72202

UALR Law Review Symposium Series

2006 Symposium Information

SYMPOSIUM SERIES
Permanently endowed by the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation, the Ben J. Altheimer Symposium is an annual event at which the UALR Law Review and the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law invite prominent scholars and speakers to the law school to explore topics of interest to the legal and scholarly community. Faculty and the UALR Law Review Symposium Editor work together to choose timely and relevant topics for the symposium and to plan a program that will promote discussion of and scholarship on the chosen topic. Selected symposium presenters also contribute scholarly articles to a special publication of the UALR Law Review that is devoted to the symposium topic.

Past symposium topics have included:

Courtroom with a View: Perspectives on Judicial Independence, April 2005
Education Funding at the Crossroads: Outside Perspectives on an Arkansas Problem, March 2004.
Imagining the Law: Lawyers And Legal Issues In The Popular Culture, October 2002
Water Rights in the 21st Century: The Challenges Move East, April 2002
The Impact Of Science On Legal Decisions, March 2001
Media Law And Ethics Enter The 21st Century, April 2000
Children Of Embattled Divorce, September 1999
Racial Equity In The 21st Century, February 1999

I. Ben J. Altheimer: The Man
Ben J. Altheimer, a successful attorney and devoted friend to higher education, was born in Pine Bluff in 1878. He practiced law in Pine Bluff and moved to Chicago in 1910, where he established one of the most prestigious law firms in the city. He frequently returned to Arkansas to visit and involve himself in the farming operation near Altheimer. The town was named for his father and uncle, who donated land to the railroad for a depot.

Altheimer created the Ben J. Altheimer Foundation, a split-interest trust, which is divided between 35 individuals and trustee-selected charities. The Foundation has donated significant sums to UALR, UALR William H. Bowen School of Law, and others.

Ben J. Altheimer was the single trustee of the Foundation until his death in 1946, when five successor trustees, designated by him, assumed the responsibility for the continuation of the Foundation.

II. Ben J. Altheimer: The Foundation
The Ben J. Altheimer Foundation has a true legacy of partnership with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, ranging from substantial gifts to the William H. Bowen School of Law to providing funding to aid research at the UALR College of Science and Mathematics.

The Foundation's significant support for the new UALR William H. Bowen School of Law was preceded by a gift in 1977 that helped renovate two courtrooms in the Old Federal Building in Little Rock for use by the UALR William H. Bowen School of Law.

In 1978 the Foundation began funding the Ben J. Altheimer Symposium (formerly the Ben J. Altheimer Lecture Series), which continues to bring prominent scholars to the School of Law to lecture on timely issues. The Foundation has permanently endowed the symposium with a $200,000 gift.

The Ben J. Altheimer Distinguished Professorship was initiated in 1981 at the William H. Bowen School of Law. In 1995 the Foundation created a permanent endowment for the Ben J. Altheimer Distinguished Professorship with a $250,000 gift.