UALR’s Steinbuch adds to complaint over professorships

LITTLE ROCK — University of Arkansas at Little Rock law professor Robert Steinbuch has focused much of his complaints about the awarding of named professorships in the William H. Bowen School of Law on the Arkansas Bar Foundation Professorship.

His latest amended complaint to the Arkansas State Claims Commission includes new details of what he argues is improper handling of the Byron Eiseman named professorship.

The complaint, filed Monday by Steinbuch’s attorney Chris Corbitt, takes issue with a proposed revision from August 2022 that would focus that named professorship even more on a tax attorney and call it the Byron Eiseman Professorship in Taxation.

Eiseman, who has supported the Bowen law school for decades, including as an adjunct professor teaching estate planning and estate and gift taxation, established the endowed professorship in 2000.

It was to be known as the Byron M. Eiseman Distinguished Professorship in Taxation, with the holder known as the “Byron M. Eiseman distinguished professor in taxation,” unless the holder was not recognized in the area of taxation, in which case he or she would be the “Byron M. Eiseman Distinguished Professor,” according to the original agreement.

The holder was meant to be accomplished in teaching or scholarship in taxation, but if the dean couldn’t find such a person on the faculty, the recipient could be a full or distinguished professor recognized for accomplishments or scholarship in any area of law.

So, while the named professorship was meant for a tax specialist, it wasn’t restricted to that, and while “no one would dispute that I am not a tax attorney,” Steinbuch did serve as deputy senior counselor to the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, he said. In addition, he served on a commission to revamp the criminal investigation division of the IRS while at the Department of Justice.

The revised gift agreement was drafted roughly a month after Steinbuch emailed Bowen Dean Theresa Beiner with his arguments for him being awarded this particular named professorship, which was vacant.

The draft of the revised agreement states that the purpose of the endowed professorship is to attract, recruit and pay highly qualified individuals to the position of full professor in taxation at the law school, supplement university support for outstanding faculty in the law school and provide the holder of the professorship in taxation with the resources to continue and further contributions to teaching, research and public service at the law school.

Beiner noted last year that she planned to hold the position open to attract someone with expertise in tax law to the faculty. But late last year, a faculty appeals committee said “named professorships cannot be used in recruitment and hiring because tenure cannot be offered to new hires” — university policy classifies named professorships as “rewards” eligible only to tenured faculty members with the rank of full professor — “and rank for new hires is limited to the level of associate professor.”

Steinbuch argues in his complaint that the terms for this named professorship were set when it was established in 2000 and that they cannot be changed, even with a Feb. 9 email from Eiseman to Beiner stating that he hopes “you can find another Phil Oliver” — an attorney who taught tax at Bowen and held the Eiseman named professorship before retiring — “to join the faculty who could benefit from my gift.”

A donor “cannot change the terms of a gift agreement after the gift is given,” according to the latest amended complaint. “To do so would violate tax law.”

Steinbuch and Corbitt also filed a motion Wednesday to disqualify university counsel from this case, because head university counsel JoAnn Maxey was “part of the redrafting effort” for the Eiseman named professorship last August, he said. That redrafting/revision is “part of the wrongful behavior subject to this very proceeding.”

“If anyone is a witness or party to an action, he or she can’t be the attorney for anyone but” himself or herself, he added. “The whole entity” of university counsel “should be disqualified” from this case.

UALR and the University of Arkansas System declined to comment, with Nate Hinkel, director of communication for the UA System, and Carrie Phillips, chief communications and marketing officer at UALR, saying it’s against policy to comment on “pending litigation.”

Steinbuch would like this named professorship opened up so any faculty member could apply, not only someone devoted to tax law, and then filled, because it’s “past due,” he said. In addition, the draft of the revised agreement from August 2022 “shows the ongoing machinations at the law school [and that there’s] not been enough oversight of the law school’s administration.”

AN ONGOING CASE

Steinbuch first filed his complaint with the state claims commission last year, arguing that Beiner — who announced in the fall of 2022 that she will step down from the dean role effective July 1 and return to a faculty position — has improperly handled multiple named professorships, which typically are for four years and include an annual $10,250 stipend for the holder. Steinbuch is seeking an award of $10,250, payment for his attorney fees and “all other just and proper relief.”

Steinbuch had originally focused on the Arkansas Bar Foundation Professorship, which he felt he deserved rather than Lindsey Gustafson, a member of the faculty since 1998 who was appointed associate dean for academic affairs in 2020.

He said his service to the Arkansas “bar and bench” — courts and attorneys, respectively — far outweighs Gustafson’s contributions in those arenas, and the preponderance of his prior complaint filings concentrated on why he believes he was improperly denied that named professorship, for which service to the bar and bench is a crucial prerequisite.

The latest amended complaint was a response to the university’s latest motion to dismiss, filed Feb. 3.

In that motion, Mindy Pipkin, associate general counsel for the UA System, asserts that “Steinbuch has had three efforts (the initial complaint, the first amended and substituted complaint and the second amended and substituted complaint) to state a facially valid claim, [but] his efforts have been futile because the essence of what he seeks is a review of administrative decisions to which no right of review exists under Arkansas law.”

“Administrative decisions of state agencies are not reviewable, and this commission should reject Steinbuch’s request that it oversee the university’s discretionary, administrative decisions,” she added. “The commission should not enter an award for a claim or action that the judiciary would dismiss as a matter of law.”

Steinbuch also claims Beiner unilaterally extended the named professorship she holds, the Nadine Baum Distinguished Professor of Law, for a fifth year.

The dean can extend named professorships beyond four years if “development activities generate sufficient additional named professorships” or if specific terms of a donor in creating a named professorship differ, according to Steinbuch.

For Beiner to extend her own named professorship beyond four years not only violates the law school’s stated rules — no new named professorships have been created recently, which is a condition for extending a named professorship beyond four years for the same holder — but is a conflict of interest, the complaint continued.

NEXT STEPS

The university could file another motion to dismiss in response to the latest amended complaint, as it has done with prior complaints. If the university does so, Steinbuch and Corbitt could respond with another amended complaint, or the matter could finally reach the commissioners.

The commissioners can then, based on evidence, either dismiss the amended complaint — which alleges breach of contract, third-party beneficiary contract, due process rights, violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing — or set it for a hearing.

Both parties would then argue their case, similar to a civil court case, and the commissioners would ultimately rule in favor of one side or the other, according to the claims commission. The claims commission’s next hearings are scheduled for March 9-10, then May 18-19.

“Steinbuch’s breach of contract claim should be dismissed because an employment contract expressly entitling him to a named professorship does not exist, [and] his due process claim should be dismissed because he fails to state facts establishing the most basic requirement for a due process violation: a deprivation of a constitutionally protected life, liberty or property interest,” according to Pipkin’s motion to dismiss.

His third-party beneficiary claim “fails as a matter of law as he is not a third-party beneficiary and lacks standing to pursue the claim,” according to the motion to dismiss.

“Finally, Steinbuch’s claim of an APA violation should be dismissed because the APA is inapplicable to higher-education institutions, administrative decisions are not reviewable under the APA, the commission does not have the authority to address an APA claim because appeals are filed directly with the circuit courts and remedies under the APA include affirming or remanding a decision, not an award of monetary damages,” according to the motion to dismiss.

Steinbuch, who joined the Bowen faculty in 2005, added the “breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing” to his latest amended complaint because “any one of these acts” alleged in his complaint “may not look that bad on their own, but taken together ring loudly as bad faith,” he said Tuesday.

As part of his filing with the claims commission, Steinbuch notes that prior complaints he’s made about the dean’s actions have been affirmed on two other occasions. UALR Chancellor Christina Drale sided with Steinbuch in the instance of putting former President Bill Clinton’s name on a named professorship, and a university panel sided with him in a case where Steinbuch was told he couldn’t have guest lecturers for his classes when he observes Jewish holidays.