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July 5, 2017

The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees recently approved promotions and/or tenure for five UK Law faculty members: Tina M. Brooks, Kristin J. Hazelwood, Diane B. Kraft, Cortney E. Lollar, and Franklin L. Runge.

Tina M. Brooks was promoted to Librarian II with tenure in the Library Title Series. Prof. Brooks joined the UK Law Library faculty in July 2011 as the Electronic Services Librarian. Prior to this position, she studied history and Spanish at the University of Northern Iowa, one semester of which was spent abroad at the University of Ovideo in Spain. The summer following her first year at the University of Nebraska College of Law, she studied international law abroad at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. During her last two years of law school, she worked in a student position at the Schmid Law Library and discovered her calling for law librarianship. She then obtained her masters in Information Science at the University of Texas's School of Information while working in the circulation department at the Tarlton Law Library. She began her current position at UK directly after finishing her masters program in 2011.

Kristin J. Hazelwood was promoted to Associate Professor in the Clinical Title Series. Prior to joining the UK Law faculty as a professor of legal research and writing, she taught legal writing at Vanderbilt University Law School and Belmont University College of Law, both in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to teaching, she practiced with Bass, Berry & Sims, PLC in Nashville. She practiced in the firm’s environmental, commercial, and litigation departments. She received her B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Louisville in 1996. She was a member of the inaugural class of McConnell Scholars at the University of Louisville. Prof. Hazelwood received her law degree magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1999. She was a Staff Writer and Executive Editor of the Washington & Lee Law Review. Her note, “Let the Buyer Beware: The Seventh Circuit’s Approach to Accept-or-Return Offers,” was published in the Washington & Lee Law Review and received an award for the best student-written note.

Diane B. Kraft was promoted to Associate Professor in the Clinical Title Series. Prof. Kraft received her J.D. From the University of Wisconsin School of Law, where she was a managing editor for the Wisconsin International Law Journal. She received M.A. degrees in Applied Linguistics and Russian Literature from Indiana University, and a B.A. degree with Distinction in History and Journalism from the University of Wisconsin. Before coming to UK Law, Prof. Kraft was an attorney in Madison, Wisconsin, where her practice focused on litigation. In her pre-law life, Professor Kraft taught Russian, English as a Second Language, and academic writing at Indiana University, and was a Visiting Professor of English as a Foreign Language at Korea University's Institute of Foreign Language Studies in Seoul, South Korea.

Her research interests include legal writing pedagogy and legal English for international students.

Cortney E. Lollar was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Regular Title Series. Prof. Lollar joined the faculty in 2013. Prior to joining the UK Law faculty, she was a clinical faculty fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, where she taught the Criminal Justice Clinic. She previously represented adult and juvenile defendants at the trial and appellate level at the Federal Defender Program in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. She has served as a legal consultant in India for the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, and a research assistant to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. Prof. Lollar received her B.A. magna cum laude from Brown University, and her J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Law and Social Change. Her primary research interests involve the intersections among criminal procedure, criminal law, gender, sexuality, social science and remedies.

Franklin L. Runge was promoted to Librarian II with tenure in the Library Title Series. Prof. Runge joined the UK Law Library Faculty as the Faculty Services Librarian in May 2011. His primary responsibility is to promote and amplify the research interests of all faculty members. He is the point person for the College of Law's digital scholarship efforts. He is a member of the teaching team that instructs first-year students in their Legal Research and Writing course. Previously, he served as the Interim Director of Admissions, a position that he held from 2012-2013 and 2015. Prof. Runge received a B.A. in Political Science from Hiram College in 2000, a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law in 2003, and a M.L.S. from the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University in 2010. Following law school, he clerked for the judges of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, where his research interests included right to die decisions, complaints for grandparent visitation, and petitions to remove children from the Commonwealth. After his clerkship, he stayed in Boston, Massachusetts and practiced law at Weisman & McIntyre, PC, where he focused on product liability cases against tobacco companies, education reform litigation at the state level, and seatbelt safety litigation against automotive manufacturers.

All promotions became effective July 1.

Congratulations on these very important and well-deserved accomplishments!