Professor of Law Emeritus
Biography
Ted Finman was born in San Francisco, California, in 1931. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Chicago in 1950 and his LL.B. from Stanford, where he served as President of the Stanford Law Review, in 1954. After several years of law practice in the San Francisco Bay area, he joined the faculty of the University of New Mexico Law School in 1959, visited at Rutgers Law School during the 1962-63 academic year, and then came to the UW Law School. He has taught and published in the areas of Civil Procedure, Professional Responsibilities, and freedom of expression. His critique and recommendations in a 1962 Yale Law Review article on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36 were closely followed when that rule was substantially amended in 1970. The Lawyer in Modern Society, which he coauthored, was the first modern casebook in the field of professional responsibilities at the time of its publication in 1966. He served on the committee appointed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to review and revise the Wisconsin Code of Professional Responsibility, has been a speaker and commentator at numerous meetings and conferences on professional responsibility matters, and has otherwise been an active participant in this area.
In addition to his academic work, Professor Finman has played a prominent role in faculty governance at all levels at the University of Wisconsin. The list of his many activities in this area includes: chair of the University Committee, the executive committee of the UW-Madison faculty; chair Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Harassment; Chair Ad Hoc Task Force on UW-Madison Enrollment; member UW-Madison Athletic Board, and UW-Madison representative to the NCAA, the Big Ten Conference, and the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. He is married to Susan Finman, and they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in January 2000. They have two daughters and three grandchildren, all of whom live in the Madison area. Finman appears regularly on the courts at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium, and on the downhill skiing slopes at Alta, Utah, and, he says, "will continue to do so as long as my knees hold out."
