University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

The urban public law school with a small liberal arts feel

Paul D. Callister Director of the Leon E. Bloch Law Library & Associate Professor of Law; B.A. (Brigham Young University); J.D. (Cornell Law School); M.S. in Library & Information Science (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) email 816-235-1650 vitae Professor Callister received tenure on the law faculty in 2007.  He joined UMKC in 2003 as the Director of its law library after serving as an Assistant Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Callister has emphasized improving the physical and electronic holdings, increasing instructional services, and partnering with local institutions.  Professor Callister's research interests include the relationship of information environments to legal institutions, jurisprudence, stability and the rule of law.  In October of 2006, Professor Callister was invited to present a paper at Boalt Hall Law School for a symposium, "Legal Information and the Development of American Law Further Thinking about the Thoughts of Bob Berring."  The resulting article, Law and Heideigger’s Question Concerning Technology: A Prolegomenon to Future Law Librarianship, was recently published in Law Library Journal (download). In September of 2006, Professor Callister received the Brenner Faculty Publishing Award for Law's Box:  Law, Jurisprudence and the Information Ecosphere, 74 UMKC Law Review 263-334 (2005) (download).  The article was unanimously selected from among UMKC law faculty publications published in 2005-2006.  In another recent publication, Identity and Market for Loyalties Theories: The Case for Free Information Flow in Insurgent Iraq, 25 Saint Louis University Public Law Review 123-153 (2006) (download), Professor Callister applied "Market for Loyalties Theory" to understand how the information environment affects the establishment of a stable society, including the rule of law.  In 2007, Professor Callister briefed military officers and academics at conference of U.S. Special Operations Pacific Area Command on some of the implications of the article with respect to military and government stabilization and reconstruction operations. Besides administering the library and research, Professor Callister teaches Cyberlaw and Infosphere.  He also teaches Advanced Legal Research: Transactional Law. Professor Callister has traveled widely for his research and professional purposes, including to Beijing, Chongqing and Nanjing, China (2006) as part of UMKC's China Law program, to the Prague in the Czech Republic for the ABA's CEELI Rule of Law Initiative (2004), and Salzburg, Austria for various Salzburg Seminars (2004 and 2006).  While at a Salzburg Seminar in 2004, Professor Callister served as draftsman for a working group and session statement, The Communal Role of Libraries. In August of 2007, he will participate in law school's Oxford program.  Professor Callister is active in the American Association of Law Libraries (serving as Chair of the organization's Copyright Committee for 2005-2006 and on the Government Relations Committee for 2006-2008). Prior to becoming a librarian, Professor Callister practiced law for nine years at the firm of Callister & Callister in Glendale, California near Los Angeles. His practice areas included qualified retirement plans, estate planning, tax, business and professional organizations, and business transactions. While at Brigham Young University, Professor Callister interrupted his studies to serve a two-year mission for his church in the Netherlands and Belgium. Professor Callister is married to Virginia Callister. Together, they have three sons, ages 17, 12 and 9. Professor Callister's Web Links for Legal Research and Cyberlaw