Voss-Bascom Professor of Law
E-mail: smbarkan@wisc.edu
Telephone: (608)262-1151
Office: Room 6358, Law School
Education:
J.D., Cleveland State University
A.M.L.S., University of Michigan
Teaching Areas:
Torts
Recently Taught Courses
715 Torts
936 Torts II
942 European Union Law
Research Interests:
Legal Research
Torts
Products Liability
European Products Liability Law
Biography
Steve Barkan came to the UW Law School as the director of the Law Library in 1995. In addition to administering the Law Library, Professor Barkan teaches Torts I and Torts II. He is the director of the Law School's summer study abroad program in Giessen, Germany, and he directs the Law School's student and faculty exchange program with the University of Giessen. He also team-teaches a course on European law with visiting professors from Giessen.
Prior to coming to the Law School, Professor Barkan was on the faculty of the Marquette University Law School, where he served as director of the law library, associate dean, and interim dean, and taught legal ethics and workers' compensation law, among other subjects. In 1993, he was the recipient of the first Excellence in Academic Law Librarianship Award sponsored by the West Publishing Company. Professor Barkan also has served as the associate law librarian at the University of Texas School of Law, a research librarian for the Supreme Court of the United States, and a reference librarian at the University of Southern California Law Library. He practiced personal injury and workers' compensation law in Ohio for six years and is a member of the Wisconsin and Ohio bars. He currently is the UW Law School's representative to the Board of Bar Examiners of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
Professor Barkan is the primary author (with the late Roy M. Mersky and the late Donald J. Dunn) of the ninth edition of Fundamentals of Legal Research. In 1992, he was the founding editor of Perspectives, a journal devoted to teaching legal research and writing in law schools.
Professor Barkan has two children: Davida, age 24, and Daniel, age 21. Davida graduated from the Milwaukee High School of the Arts, Harvard College, and the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London. She currently is an academic intern at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Daniel graduated from Marquette University High School in Milwaukee and is in his second year at Dona Ana College of New Mexico State University. Professor Barkan's interests include reading all sorts of things, movies, music, and travel.
