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 University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law (since July 2003).
B.A., Brigham Young University (1988); J.D.,
Cornell Law School (1991); M.S. in Library & Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2000)
Professor Callister received tenure on the UMKC Law School faculty in 2007. He initially 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 at the law library, increasing instructional services,
digitization projects, 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 pursuit of his research,
in 2007 he co-founded the Institute for Rule of
Law, Identity, Stability & Culture (IRISC), which is dedicated to promoting
stability in foreign states through the rule of law, culture, and civic
identity. In April, 2008,
Callister presented, Rule of Law in the Context of Stability, at National
Defense University in Washington, D.C. to an audience of military,
State Department, and USAID officials.
In fall of
2007, Professor Callister was the invited keynote speaker for the annual meeting
of the Arab Federation for Libraries and Information, held in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia, where he spoke on The Question Concerning Libraries. In the
fall he also presented a
paper, entitled Books
above the Throne: The Ascension of the Book and the Actualization of Rule of
Law in 17th -Century England at the International Conference of the Book,
hosted in Madrid, Spain. A paper, based on the presentation, is currently
under submission to law reviews (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.
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 UMKC 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 there he published several articles or chapters on tax law, including an
article on charitable remainder trusts in the ABA and Georgetown's Tax Lawyer
and a chapter on pension law in CCH's Federal Tax Service.
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 18, 13 and
10.
In another recent publication, Identity and Market for
Loyalties Theories: The Case for Free Information Flow in Insurgent Iraq,
25 
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,
