 Allan Walker Vestal |
Incoming Drake Law School Dean Allan Walker Vestal knew he wanted to be a lawyer by the time he was in first grade.
It wasn’t a surprising career choice in his family. His grandfather was a lawyer as was his father, Allan Delker Vestal, who taught at the University of Iowa College of Law for 35 years.
“I knew from very early childhood that I wanted to be a lawyer,” Vestal said. “Growing up in a law school community in Iowa City, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of very interesting people who were able to make a difference in what they were doing.”
Vestal’s two older sisters became lawyers as did his younger brother. “When I told my father I wanted to go to law school, he said that if I could be a little more creative, it would be a good thing,” Vestal recalled with a chuckle.
His father began teaching at Iowa in 1949. “They moved the classes through as quickly as possible in the years after World War II,” Vestal said, “so he started teaching in January even though he didn’t graduate from Yale Law School until February.”
The elder Vestal was still teaching at Iowa when he died in 1983.
“He had been extremely ill that last year, but he wanted to get through the last semester,” Vestal said, “I suspect he would have seen some humor in the fact that he finished the class and gave the exam but then passed away without having graded it.”
Vestal strives to emulate his father
Dean Vestal’s father was a very good teacher and a respected scholar in the area of civil procedure.
“In a lot of different ways I would hope to emulate him,” Vestal said. “He struck a good balance between scholarship and being a good teacher. That’s very important. And he was always looking for opportunities to contribute to the practice of law, for ways in which the law school and the profession could relate to one another.”
Like his father, Vestal earned his law degree at Yale. He began his career in 1979 with Foley & Lardner, a large firm in Milwaukee. In 1982, he moved to the Cedar Rapids firm of Shuttleworth & Ingersoll PC, where he was an associate and later a partner. He worked primarily on large, complex business transactions and argued several cases before the Iowa Supreme Court.
In 1989, Vestal moved from private practice to the Washington & Lee School of Law in Lexington, Virginia, where he taught in the areas of partnership and corporation law, commercial and real estate law.
Teaching was the last thing Vestal wanted to do when he was in law school. But after 10 years of practice, he became more interested in the theoretical aspects of his work.
“I was often frustrated that I couldn’t develop things as much as I wanted on a theoretical plane,” he said. “I also found myself enjoying the educational aspects of being in a law firm. Moving into teaching and research was a fairly natural fit.”
Vestal became a prolific scholar, particularly in the area of unincorporated business associations. He is the author or co-author of more than 30 law review articles and book chapters. He also is the author of the Thomson West treatise on the Revised Uniform Partnership Act.
Respected scholar becomes an effective leader
His next move was to administration. He served as associate dean at Washington & Lee for a year before joining the University of Kentucky in Lexington as dean and associate professor of law in 2000.
As dean, he guided the College of Law through budgetary challenges and made substantial progress on two capital campaigns and the planning for a new building. He also secured additional funding from the state and federal government.
His strong commitment to diversity led him to work with the Kentucky Supreme Court to create a program that provides five substantial scholarships for diverse students annually at each of Kentucky’s three law schools.
He returned to the faculty last July and is on sabbatical for the 2008-09 academic year.
 Allan Vestal and Peter K. Yu (right) discuss challenges and opportunities for the Law School at a recent scholars roundtable. |
New dean to take the helm June 1
Vestal, 55, will become dean of Drake Law School on June 1, succeeding Benjamin B. Ullem, a senior partner in the Des Moines law firm of Whitfield & Eddy PLC. Ullem took a leave of absence from Drake’s Board of Trustees to serve a one-year term as dean in 2008-09.
To prepare for his new position, Vestal has made several trips to Des Moines in recent months, attending the annual Supreme Court Banquet and the Intellectual Property Roundtable, which was organized by Peter K. Yu, the Kern family chair in intellectual property law.
“The IP Roundtable brought in international scholars from a number of different backgrounds,” Vestal said. “That illustrated to me how energetic and innovative the newest members of the faculty are, qualities shared across the faculty.
“The Supreme Court Banquet,” he added, “gave me a wonderful chance to meet Drake Law School graduates. With 400 people there, it was a very impressive demonstration of how important the Law School is to the legal community in Iowa.”
 Allan Vestal (right) interacts with law student Phil De Koster at the annual Supreme Court Banquet. |
New dean to focus on fundraising, career services
Vestal sees a number of challenges and opportunities facing Drake Law School.
“In this economic climate, it’s important to make sure we have the resources to carry the Law School forward,” he said. “That’s something that’s very important for the school and something on which I will spend a lot of my time.”
“I also plan to focus on letting people know how good the school is. There is a long list of accomplishments of the faculty, students and administration over the last few years. A lot of people know of this record, but others aren’t fully aware of it and we’re going to help them become aware.”
Vestal said he also will devote his attention to the Law School’s career services. “There are concerns about placement with the tough job market that graduates are facing this year,” he added. “It is especially helpful in a challenging job market to have the Dean out acting as an advocate for our graduates, and given the quality of our graduates it is an easy case to make.”
“Drake students have the reputation of being highly accomplished and very good writers. They’re trained quite well. I’m going to spend a lot of time helping in this area to make sure students have as many opportunities as possible available to them.”
At home in the courtroom and the kitchen
When he’s not working, Vestal enjoys cooking — especially Asian dishes — as well as reading and travel. Among the books he’s read lately are various accounts of the war in Iraq and biographies of Sen. Ted Kennedy and Thomas Paine.
Although he’s not eager to return to Iowa’s harsh winters, Vestal is looking forward to being closer to family and friends and family. His wife, Brenda, a native of Iowa City and a graduate of the University of Iowa, also has family in the state.
The couple recently purchased a home in Urbandale. Their daughter, Eleanor, 15, will attend Dowling High School next fall. Their son, James, 19, is completing his first year at the University of Missouri.
The jury is still out on whether Vestal’s children will continue the family tradition of becoming lawyers. James is majoring in journalism and Eleanor has yet to decide on a college, much less a major or a profession.
“Years ago, when we were still living in Virginia,” Vestal remembers, “my wife and I asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. James told me he wanted to be a CEO and then asked whether I — who was teaching corporations at the time — knew what that was. Eleanor volunteered that she wanted to be a cloud when she grew up. Given those responses, I am thinking that having two lawyers wouldn’t be bad.”