::Rusch, Linda J.

Biographical Information

Linda J. Rusch is the inaugural holder of the Frederick N. and Barbara T. Curley Professor in Commercial Law at Gonzaga University School of Law. Prior to joining Gonzaga, she was a professor of law teaching in the area of commercial law at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Prof. Rusch graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law with highest distinction and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Prior to joining the Hamline faculty in 1992, she practiced commercial law and bankruptcy as an associate with the Minneapolis firm of Faegre & Benson, and clerked for the Honorable Milton I. Shadur, United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

Over the course of several years, Prof. Rusch has been involved in the revision of the Uniform Commercial Code. From 1996-99, she served as the Associate Reporter for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the American Law Institute Drafting Committee to Revise Article 2 of the UCC. From 2000 to 2003, she served as a co-reporter for and member of the NCCUSL-ALI Drafting Committee to revise UCC Article 7. She currently serves as a member of the Permanent Editorial Board of the UCC, and is on the Executive Committee for the PEB.

Prof. Rusch is actively involved in many national and local bar groups. She has filled many leadership roles in the American Bar Association Business Law Section including as the past chair of the Committee on the UCC and the past co-chair of the Working Group on Transferable Electronic Assets. She is currently serving a four year term as an elected member of the ABA Business Law Section Council and is chairing the Council Committee on Member Services.

She has been nominated to the position of Secretary of the ABA Business Law Section, the first rung on the ladder toward the position of Chair. She recently finished two-and-a-half-year term as the Faculty Editor of The Business Lawyer, the academic peer-edited journal published by the ABA Business Law Section.

She has been appointed by the ABA President as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Publishing Oversight and is serving as the liaison from that committee to the ABA Standing Committee on CLE. In addition, Prof. Rusch is the President-Elect for the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers. She is also a member of the American Law Institute and the American College of Bankruptcy. As a member of the American Law Institute, she participates in the Members Consultative Groups on the development of the Restatement of Restitution, the Principles of Software Contracting, and the Restatement of Torts (Third): Economic Losses.

Prof. Rusch has published numerous articles and books on the Uniform Commercial Code and bankruptcy, and is a frequent lecturer on those topics. 

Teaching Areas

• Creditor's Rights (Secured Transactions)
• Payment Systems
• Sales
• Contracts

Publications

Books and Book Chapters

• A Problem Approach to Commercial Transactions (co-authored with Stephen Sepinuck) (scheduled for publication in 2009, Thomson/West)
• Problems And Materials On Bankruptcy Law and Practice (Thomson/West) (with Teacher's Manual) (with Prof. Stephen Sepinuck) (2007)
• Payment Systems: Problems, Materials and Cases (Thomson/West)with Teacher's Manual)(3rd Edition 2007)
• Hawkland's Uniform Commercial Code Series, Revised UCC Article 7, (Annual Supplements for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)
• Hawkland's Uniform Commercial Code Series, UCC Article 7 Volume, (Annual Supplements for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)
• Hawkland's Uniform Commercial Code Series, UCC Article 2 Volume, (Annual Supplements for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)
• Problems And Materials On Secured Transactions with Teacher’s Manual (with Prof. Stephen L. Sepinuck) (Thomson/West 2006)
• Black Letter Series: Secured Transactions (Thomson/West 2006)
• Commercial Transactions: Sales, Leases And Licenses (2nd Edition) (with Speidel)(Thomson/West 2004) (with Teacher’s Manual)
• ABC's Of The UCC: Article 7 (Revised) Documents Of Title (ABA Business Law Section, 2004)
• The ABC's Of The UCC Article 2 (Revised): Sales, coauthored with Henry D. Gabriel (ABA Business Law Section, 2004)
• Payment Systems: Problems, Materials And Cases (2nd Edition 2003) (West Group) (with teacher’s manual)
• Commercial Transactions: Sales, Leases And Licenses (with Richard Speidel) with Teacher’s Manual (West Group 2001)
• Payment Systems: Problems, Materials And Cases and Teacher’s Manual (West Group 2000)
• 1997 Supplement to Casebook: Sales Under The UCC And CISG (Anderson Publishing 1993) with Professors Louis F. Del Duca, Egon Guttman, Fred Miller, and Peter Winship
• The ABC's Of The UCC Article 2: Sales, coauthored with Henry D. Gabriel (ABA Business Law Section 1997)
• Chapter VI: Single Asset Cases and Chapter 11: The Classification Quandary in Single Asset Real Estate Bankruptcies (ABA Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law 1997)

Articles

• Reimagining Payment Systems: Allocation of Risk for Unauthorized Payment Inception (forthcoming 2008, Chicago Kent Law Review)
• Products Liability Trapped in History: Our Choice of Rules Rules Our Choices, 76 Temple L. Rev. 739 (2003)
• Uniform Commercial Code Article 2 and Article 7: Intersection with Bankruptcy, 28 Oklahoma City Univ. L. Rev. 543 (2003)
• Is the Saga of the Uniform Commercial Code Article 2 Revisions Over? A Brief Look at What NCCUSL Finally Approved, 6 DEL. L. REV. 41 (2003)
• Property Concepts in the Revised U.C.C. Articles 2 and 9 are Alive and Well, 54 SMU L. REV. 947 (2001)
• A History and Perspective on Revised Article 2: The Never Ending Saga of a Search for Balance, 52 SMU L. Rev. 1683 (1999)
• Limits on Standard-Form Contracting in Revised Article 2, coauthored with Michael M. Greenfield, 32 UCC L. J. 115 (1999)
• Farm Financing Under Revised Article 9, Symposium on Revised Article 9 and the Bankruptcy Code, 73 Am. Bankr. L. J. 211 (1999)
• The Relevance of Evolving Domestic and International Law on Contracts in the Classroom: Assumptions about Assent, 72 Tulane L. Rev. 2043 (June 1998) (Symposium from January 1998 AALS annual meeting)
• General Provisions and Sales, coauthored with Henry Gabriel and Thomas McCarthy, 51 Bus. Lawyer 1361 (1996)
• Bankruptcy as a Revolutionary Concept: Good Faith Filing and A Theory of Obligation, 57 Mont. L. Rev. 49 (Winter 1996)
• Unintended Consequences of Unthinking Tinkering: The 1994 Amendments and the Chapter 11 Process, 69 Am. Bankr. L. J. 349 (1995)
• General Provisions and Sales, coauthored with Henry Gabriel and David Gruning, 50 Bus. Lawyer 1461 (1995)
• The Article 9 Filing System: Why a Race-Recording Model is Unworkable, 79 Minn. L. Rev. 565 (1995) (Part of symposium on Article 9 Filing System)
• Perspectives on the Revision of U.C.C. Article 2, Part 7: Remedies coauthored with Roy Ryden Anderson, 1995 Commercial Law Annual 207 (Clark Boardman Publications)
• Bankruptcy Reorganization Jurisprudence: Matters of Belief, Faith and Hope--Stepping into the Fourth Dimension, 55 Mont. L. Rev. 9 (1994)
• Single Asset Cases in Chapter 11: The Classification Quandary, 1 American Bankruptcy Institute L. Rev. 43 (1993)
• The New Value Exception to the Absolute Priority Rule: What Should the Rule Be?, 19 Pepperdine L. Rev. 1311 (1992)
• Gerrymandering the Classification Issue in Chapter Eleven Reorganizations, 63 U. Colo. L. Rev. 163 (1992)
• Separation of Powers Analysis as a Method for Determining the Validity of Federal District Courts' Exercise of Local Rulemaking Power: Application to Local Rules Mandating Alternative Dispute Resolution, 23 Conn. L. Rev. 483 (1991)

Works in Progress

• A Problem Approach to Commercial Transactions (scheduled for publication in 2009, Thomson/West) (co-authored with Stephen Sepinuck)
• 2009 Annual Supplements to Hawkland's Uniform Commercial Code Series, UCC Article 2, UCC Article 7, and Revised UCC Article 7

Presentations

• CLE Program on the 2008 Commercial Law Developments, Gonzaga University School of Law December 5, 2008 and at Law firm of Lane Powell, Seattle, WA December 12, 2008
• Surveying Your Membership, Business Bar Leaders Conference (Chicago), May, 2008
• Participated as moderator for panels at a two-day conference on Globalizing Secured Transactions Law, March, 2008
• Presented a 3-hour CLE on commercial law developments at Aiken, Siljeg & St. Louis, in Seattle, January, 2008 
• Facilitated several group meetings on strategic planning for section, chaired a meeting of the Council Committee on Member Services, co-chaired and co-facilitated a leadership development workshop for the section's committee chairs, ABA Business Law Section Midwinter Leadership Meeting, 2008 
• Conducted a 90-minute program on Commercial Law Developments for the firm of Stoel Rives with Prof. Stephen Sepinuck. The program took place in Seattle, but was also broadcast to attorneys in the firm's offices in Minneapolis, Portland, and Salt Lake City. (December 7, 2007)
• Conducted a 5-hour CLE Program for the Seattle office of Lane Powell law firm with Prof. Stephen Sepinuck (December 6, 2007)
• Conducted a 3-hour program on Commercial Law Developments with Prof. Stephen Sepinuck at Gonzaga University School of Law (November 30, 2007) 
• Attended the fall meeting of the Permanent Editorial Board of the Uniform Commercial Code as an ALI representative and as a member of the Executive Committee of that PEB, November 2007
• Participated in two ABA meetings for the Standing Committee on CLE and the Standing Committee on Publishing Oversight, October 2007
• Participated in two meetings of the American Law Institute Members Consultative Group on the Principles of Software Contracting and on the Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, September 2007
• Presented on the topic The Future of Payments Law at the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco as part of a panel on Electronic Payments Systems - The Death Knell for UCC Article 4 or a Clarion Call for Modernization? 2007
• Two presentations on the UCC and Bankruptcy laws at the 17th Annual Bankruptcy Seminar and Retreat for the Bankruptcy Bar Association for the Eastern District of Washington, June 2007
• Co-presented a program with Prof. Stephen Sepinuck, Commercial Law Developments, at mid-year meeting of the Business Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association, June 2007
• Practicing Leadership as a Way of Life, Hamline University Law School, March 14, 2006

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Memberships

• Designated the reporter for the Study Committee on Regulation of Financial Institutions and Payment Systems created by the Uniform Law Commission