Tag Archives: Dave Frohnmayer: UO President

Lorry Lokey comes through for the Knight Law School, honoring Frohnmayer

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More good news on fundraising from Around the O:

His many admirers considered Dave Frohnmayer the “leader’s leader,” and now his legacy will live on permanently at the University of Oregon School of Law through the new Dave Frohnmayer Chair in Leadership and Law, made possible by a lead gift from Lorry I. Lokey.

Lokey’s leadership gift has inspired other donors to join, and with more than $3.3 million so far, the new endowment is well on its way to supporting faculty excellence and providing leadership programming for students.

Just the latest of Lokey’s many gifts to UO’s academic side, all of which he’s asked be named in honor of others.

Oregon Law Review prints Frohnmayer festschrift

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Say what you will about Dave Frohnmayer – I have – but his friends sure have written a nice series of stories about him for the Oregon Law Review:

Oregon Law Review

Volume 94, Number 3 (2016)

Tribute to President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer

Tribute to President Emeritus Dave Frohnmayer

Oregon Law Review Editorial Board

94 Or. L. Rev. 491

Foreword on David Frohnmayer

President Michael H. Schill

94 Or. L. Rev. 493

Tributes

Dave Frohnmayer: The Legacy of a Life of Leadership and Law

Michael Moffitt

94 Or. L. Rev. 505

Supremely Worthwhile: Two Decades of Dave Frohnmayer Teaching Leadership

Barbara West

94 Or. L. Rev. 509

Nominated by Both Parties

David R. Hubin, Ph.D.

94 Or. L. Rev. 531

Dave Frohnmayer and the Oregon Legislature

Hardy Myers

94 Or. L. Rev. 541

Reflections of Law, Family, and Brotherhood

John Frohnmayer

94 Or. L. Rev. 561

Legislator, Lawyer, Scholar, and Teacher: Dave Frohnmayer’s Contributions to Oregon Administrative Law

Hon. Jack L. Landau

94 Or. L. Rev. 565

A Tribute to Dave Frohnmayer

Ellen Rosenblum

94 Or. L. Rev. 585

The Frohnmayer Method: Advocacy, Legal Policy, and the United States Supreme Court

William F. Gary and Alison K. Gary

94 Or. L. Rev. 589

Dave: Student, Friend, and Hero

Jesse H. Choper

94 Or. L. Rev. 629

Dave Frohnmayer and the Apocalypse That Evaporated

Marion Goldman

94 Or. L. Rev. 633

Public Funding and the Road to Damascus: The Legacy of Employment Division v. Smith

Garrett Epps

94 Or. L. Rev. 659

Dave Frohnmayer – A Tribute

Hon. David Schuman

94 Or. L. Rev. 673

A Legacy of Expression: Dave Frohnmayer and the Humanities in Oregon

Michael J. Clark

94 Or. L. Rev. 677

Dave Frohnmayer: Legacy, Schmegacy

Marla Rae

94 Or. L. Rev. 699

Author Index. Volume 94

I gave it a quick read, and didn’t notice anything that would provoke HLGR’s William  F. Gary into claiming defamation per se and demanding a retraction.

Former UO President Frohnmayer dies, quietly in his sleep

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[Note: I’ve turned off comments for this post. The RG has a story here, with open comments.]

On Tuesday Mar 10, 2015, at 12:24 PM, Public Affairs Communications <[email protected]> wrote:

Dear Campus Community,

I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dave Frohnmayer. Dave was a friend, a former colleague and a valued advisor. I am honored to have witnessed how his profound collaboration and insightful vision built the University of Oregon into the top research university it is today.

As a university, state and community leader, he had the ability to bring people together and build successful partnerships. That will be his lasting legacy. My deepest sympathies go out to his family and all who loved him, and there were many.

Sincerely,
Scott Coltrane
University of Oregon President

Frohnmayer Family Statement

March 10, 2015

Dave Frohnmayer passed away quietly in his sleep last night. He was 74. Dave had bravely dealt with his quiet battle against prostate cancer for 5 1/2 years. We are devastated by his passing but we are grateful that his passing was peaceful.

Much of Dave’s life was devoted to fighting devastating health crises that enveloped his family. These battles were complicated by the intense public attention that inevitably accompanied his lifelong commitment to public service. He was adamant that his own health issues would remain private. Except for the immediate family and Dave’s closest friends, he was able to accomplish this and continue a full public schedule to the end.

The family will hold a celebration of Dave’s remarkable life at a time to be announced.

Dave is survived by his wife Lynn, his sons Mark and Jonathan, his daughter Amy, his sister Mira and brother John. His daughters Kirsten and Katie and his brother Phil predeceased him.

Kate Brown signs legal aid bill that Frohnmayer and Gary opposed

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3/7/2014 update: A year after the initially undisclosed lobbying efforts of HLGR’s Dave Frohnmayer and Bill Gary helped defeat the first attempt:

NEWS RELEASE

March 4, 2015

Governor Kate Brown Signs Legal Aid Bill

(Salem, OR) — Today, Governor Kate Brown signed House Bill 2700, sending unclaimed damage awards to legal aid, instead of going back to the company that was sued.

“This law makes Oregon’s class action laws fair for all Oregonians and ensures that corporations who are responsible compensate for the harm they have caused, and helps support our critically underfunded legal services,” said Governor Kate Brown.  link to photos

3/6/2014: Buying Dave Frohnmayer pays off big for Philip Morris and BP Legal aid bill defeated in Senate, 15-15:

The concern, expressed openly by several Republican senators, is that they will now be painted as wanting to help Big Oil and Big Tobacco – both targets of class action suits in Oregon — instead of the average or low-income voter.

Dave is obviously a talented lobbyist. I wonder why he couldn’t get the legislature to give deals like this to UO, back when he was president? We didn’t properly incentivize him?

2/23/2014 update: RG Editors dismiss Frohnmayer and Gary arguments, note 48 other states now do this, and support HB 4143.

2/22/2014 update: Steve Duin has an excellent review of the conflict of interest issues swirling around Frohnmayer’s opposition to HB 4143, which would take unclaimed damages from class action settlements against his clients like Philip Morris, and use it to fund legal aid for the poor. Currently Oregon lets the corporations have it back, if they can’t find the people it’s owed to. In the Oregonian, here:

Continue reading →

School board pays HLGR $12K to help hide records – before the lawsuit even starts

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1/7/2015 update: Josephine Woolington has more in the RG on the Eugene School Board’s decision to hire HLGR to help them hide these public records:

Said school board Chairman Jim Torrey on Wednesday: “In this case, we believe our decision to bring legal action was in the best interest of the school district and the students within it.” Torrey declined to comment further on the lawsuit.

The board voted unanimously after a closed-door session on Dec. 17 to sue the newspaper. The district hired Eugene law firm Harrang Long Gary Rudnick to handle the case and the original records request, which was submitted in April.

The school district has so far paid $11,956 since late April to the law firm for legal services in connection with the records request, a district official said.

1/2/2015: Frohnmayer and Geller’s Harrang et al. law firm takes on RG over DA’s public records order

Christian Wihtol has the story in the Register Guard, here. In a nutshell, Lane County DA Alex Gardner has ordered Eugene’s 4J School District to turn records related to the job performance of Superintendent Sheldon Berman over to the Register Guard. The school district doesn’t want to, so they’re paying Dave’s HLGR to fight the order in court. Interestingly HLGR’s case is against the RG, not against the DA. I’m not sure that makes sense, but it’s the law.

As it happens, former UO General Counsel and noted public records obstructionist Randy Geller now works for HLGR, while his wife, Jennifer Geller, serves on the school board. (She now works for the UO Law School). Presumably she recused herself from the decision to fight the DA’s order, and hire HLGR to do it.

We’ll have to wait until the Eugene School District releases HLGR’s invoices to see how much time (if any) Geller and former UO President and HLGR sabbaticalee Dave Frohnmayer are hitting up the taxpayers on this one, but given that Frohnayer helped write Oregon’s public records law as a first term state legislator (elected on a post-Watergate reform platform), there’s no doubt his expertise on how to subvert it should involve a significant emolument. Dave may now have blown past his previous billable hours trifecta:

1) Defending big tobacco against the state of Oregon in federal court, here.

2) Lobbying the Oregon legislature to let BP keep unclaimed class action damages, instead of using them to fund and expansion of legal aid for the poor, here. (Apparently he and Bill Gary did this w/o filing the required lobbying disclosure with the State in advance.)

3) Helping Mike “The University” Gottfredson bargain against the UO faculty, here.

PBS interviews Frohnmayer on Fanconi Foundation

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12/31/2014 update:

The PBS News Hour uses the Frohnmayer family tragedy with Fanconi’s Anemia and the UO/FSU Rose Bowl game as a hook to examine the larger issue of research on rare diseases, here:

HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Summar, that attention, focus, there are 7,000-plus rare genetic disorders out there. And I’m going to feel a little callous saying this, but it’s almost the best thing that can happen is a celebrity gets it.

DR. MARSHALL SUMMAR, Children’s National Medical Center: In many ways, there’s some truth to that. …

HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Summar, what about these other 7,000 diseases? How do they gain kind of attention, especially from the pharmaceutical companies, right?

I mean, I hate to be a capitalist about it, too, but where’s the market? If it’s only 1,000 people or 500 people, do drug companies say, OK, we will take that risk and we will put in all that money into research and development and try to find a cure, vs. going after diabetes or cancer, right?

DR. MARSHALL SUMMAR: Well, that’s actually a great question, because, historically, they didn’t. They stayed away from the rare disease field. They figured there weren’t that many patients. There wasn’t much market. …

4/26/2010: What do gifts buy?

Greg Bolt of the RG will tell you that Pat Kilkenny has been working for UO without a written contract, just like Bellotti did. Not a surprise at this point. But why did Dave Frohnmayer ever put Kilkenny in charge of the UO athletics department, and let him decide how many millions of dollars – most of it public money, or tax deductible gifts – would be spent how, and on which coach?

These things are very complicated and involve lots of mutual respect and consideration of the public interest are usually about money.

Frohnmayer received $200,000 per year in pay from donors to the UO Foundation, and a special $150,000 bonus in 2009. These payments to Frohnmayer amounted to about 3% of the entire payout from the UO endowment that year.  Who gave this money? What were the terms of the gifts? The Oregon Attorney General has ruled that the UO Foundation can keep this a secret.

But the IRS has released the data on donations from Pat Kilkenny’s “Lucky Duck Foundation” to Dave Frohnmayer’s Fanconi Foundation. Courtesy of the IRS and www.guidestar.org. Kilkenny gave $240,000 the year before Frohnmayer appointed him as Athletic Director, and another $100,000 each year since.

This is a sad story for everyone involved, in just about every possible sense. And no one would argue that Frohnmayer benefited financially from these donations to the Fanconi Foundation. But they create an obvious potential for a conflict of interest. Frohnmayer should have immediately made them public, and recused himself from any decisions involving Pat Kilkenny. Instead he kept quiet and then appointed him UO Athletic Director and gave him control of a budget of about $60 millon, mostly public funds. Not good, Mr. Frohnmayer.

2005:

nothing

2006:

2007:

 

2008:

2009:

Not available until 11/15/2010 – assuming they run out the IRS reporting extensions again.

Tobacco lawyer and oil company lobbyist Dave Frohnmayer quoted in the NYT

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Here, in a story about state AG’s selling out to energy companies, in exchange for campaign contributions:

“When you use a public office, pretty shamelessly, to vouch for a private party with substantial financial interest without the disclosure of the true authorship, that is a dangerous practice,” said David B. Frohnmayer, a Republican who served a decade as attorney general in Oregon. “The puppeteer behind the stage is pulling strings, and you can’t see. I don’t like that. And when it is exposed, it makes you feel used.”

This is the same Dave Frohnmayer who shamelessly restarted his legal career at Harrang, Long, Gary,  and Rudnick while getting paid by UO for a sabbatical that was supposed to be used for research. He then let HLGR use his name to get UO’s lucrative legal contract, which is still costing us about $500K a year, and paying him who knows how much.

He then used his status as a UO Law Professor (which he keeps by teaching one single credit week long pass/fail law course each year) to add credibility to his arguments for big tobacco and against the state of Oregon, as described in Oregonian and in Willamette Week. He then lobbied the Oregon legislature – without registering as a lobbyist – in support of BP’s efforts to keep money from class action lawsuits against them to be used to pay for legal aid for the poor, as described in Oregonian and in Willamette Week:

UO Law school pays big-tobacco lawyer Dave Frohnmayer to teach “leadership”

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11/27/2014 update: It’s been a while since Frohnmayer has threatened to sue me “for punitive damages” (in the end he got scolded by the auditors, and had to repay some salary) so I thought I’d post this latest.

I don’t know how much the cash strapped UO Law School is paying Dave Frohnmayer and his “special assistant” Barbara West this time. From what I can tell Frohnmayer’s main goal is to be able to continue to tell potential HLGR clients and judges that “He also teaches public law courses at the School of Law where he is a professor.” Technically, I guess one undersubscribed 5 day long, 1 credit P/F class makes him a law professor – although I think his tenure reduction contract with Dean Michael Moffitt was supposed to expire a while ago:

Screen Shot 2014-11-27 at 11.19.14 PM

Frohnmayer and West are also scheduled to teach their “Theories of Leadership” class for the Political Science department again this winter. It’s an experimental course that they have managed to co-teach for many years while avoiding the required Senate Committee on Courses review. No idea how much this one is costing UO either, at the moment it’s got 14 students:

Screen Shot 2014-11-28 at 10.37.07 AM

2/18/2014: Frohnmayer takes principled stand: For big tobacco clients, against legal aid for poor:

Our former president famously negotiated his golden parachute retirement plan at the same time he was trying to convince faculty to take unpaid furloughs. Then he used his UO paid sabbatical to restart his legal career at Harrang, Long, Gary, and Rudnick, LLC. Then Randy Geller hired HLGR do UO’s legal work – rumor is they’ve billed about $1M in the past 18 months. Meanwhile, Pulitzer winner Nigel Jaquiss of Willamette Week had a great story last year on Dave’s secret work for big tobacco: “Reputation for Rent“.

And now Saul Hubbard of the RG has a report on Dave’s latest: He’s written an angry letter of protest to Oregon legislators over a bill that would take unclaimed money from class action settlements and use it to fund legal aid for the poor:

Former Oregon Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer and William Gary, both of the Eugene-based Harrang Long Gary Rudnick law firm, wrote a stinging critique of the bill in a letter that was circulated to lawmakers on Friday.

Frohnmayer is a former president of the University of Oregon. The law firm represents Philip Morris USA in a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of purchasers of Marlboro Light cigarettes that is now pending in the Oregon Court of Appeals.

I’m guessing not many dead smokers cash those settlement checks, so there must be a lot of money at stake. Here’s hoping Dave’s cut is worth it.

If I was the RG I’d be expecting a defamation lawsuit threat from Frohnmayer any minute now, just as he’s made to at least 2 newspapers that have published uncomplimentary things about him: one a student publication, another a national higher education publisher. Update: looks like he’ll have to go after Jeff Manning in the Oregonian too:

Nowhere in their letter do Frohnmayer and Gary disclose their representation of Phillip Morris or the pending class-action suit against the company. When asked about the omission, Gary said: “I don’t know the form in which the materials we prepared were shared with the legislature, so I don ‘t know specifically what was said about our representation. We are working with a coalition of business interests who oppose the bill. We have made no secret about our representation of defendants in class actions that would be affected by the legislation.” Read asked the Legislative Counsel Office to review Frohnmayer’s and Gary’s claims. In a Feb. 17 letter, Legislative Counsel attorney Dexter Johnson dismissed their arguments as unfounded.

Is Dave Frohnmayer still a UO law professor?

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12/26/2013 update: Dave Frohnmayer and Barbara West will also co-teach a 199 Political Science course, “Theories of Leadership”. Experimental 199 classes are supposed to be reviewed and approved by the faculty Senate after 2 years. Frohnmayer and West, who is his former special assistant and holds a PhD in Jungian Psychology, have taught this for many years, with no review or approval.

12/23/2013: Reports are mixed. By UO’s normal tenure reduction rules he should now just be a retired emeritus. And in fact UO’s most recent payroll report lists his regular law professor appointment as having been terminated as of August 15, and his current title and job status as “emeritus”.

Screen Shot 2013-12-22 at 6.10.34 PM

On the other hand, his apparently recently updated Harrang Long et al bio still lists him as a UO law professor, as does this 10/11 ODE story on his appointment to the scandal ridden American Academy of Arts and Sciences. While Nigel Jaquiss’s “Reputation for Rent” story about Frohnmayer’s tobacco company work, published 9/25, identifies him as “part-time law professor” at UO. Of course many UO faculty are able to get teaching work at UO after full retirement, though they probably don’t get paid $34K for co-teaching one 19 student class in the honors college. He’s also signed up to teach a one credit week-long pass/fail class for the law school in spring. No idea what Moffitt will pay him for that.

Dave Frohnmayer’s reputation takes another hit

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9/25/2013: Nigel Jaquiss of Willamette Week, who won a Pulitzer for breaking the Goldschmidt sex scandal, now takes on former UO Pres and current UO Law Professor Dave Frohnmayer for his latest extracurricular-activity – representing tobacco companies for HLGR, against the state of Oregon. Well worth reading it all – great cartoon too:

There may be no résumé in Oregon public life more impressive than the one that belongs to Dave Frohnmayer. 

Rhodes scholar, state attorney general, University of Oregon president: Frohnmayer is regarded not only as one of the state’s top legal minds but as someone who has fought for the public interest in venues ranging from the Oregon Legislature to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

But Frohnmayer recently played another role far from the spotlight, as revealed in once-secret testimony in a major legal case against the state. 

In that case, major tobacco companies challenged the state of Oregon’s right to continue receiving payments under a massive tobacco industry settlement.
And the star witness and paid expert for Big Tobacco against the state of Oregon: Dave Frohnmayer. 

In April, Frohnmayer appeared as an expert witness on behalf of the tobacco companies in front of a closed-door arbitration panel in Chicago. The Oregon Department of Justice released Frohnmayer’s testimony to WW in response to a public records request. …

Frohnmayer gets award from corrupt Academy

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9/20/2013: You can’t make this shit up. From UO’s “Around the O” blog:

University of Oregon law professor and president emeritus Dave Frohnmayer recently was named to the executive committee for The Lincoln Project , an initiative of the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Just how prestigious is the AAAS? Here’s one scandal from the Boston Globe – it turns out they gave their own $598,000 president a fake award last year, and she lied about her PhD:

What exactly does it take to lose the faith of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences? 

For a couple of weeks now, the Cambridge institution has been under siege amid allegations that its longtime president, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, has committed a litany of offenses, the major one being claiming a doctorate from New York University that she never earned. 

Berlowitz was placed on paid leave from her $598,000-a-year job while her tenure is being investigated by the law firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart. They keep getting more to look into: The latest report by the Globe’s Todd Wallack indicates that she was made a fellow of the academy under curious circumstances, which were covered by rewriting a months-old press release.

Her response? Sexism:

“Neither the academy nor President Berlowitz is going to respond to subjective, interpretive, and gossipy allegations from former employees and unnamed sources,” Howell said in the statement. “Nor are they going to respond to personal questions that are irrelevant, do not belong in the public domain and, frankly, smack of sexism.”

I think the board fired her a month or two ago. Margaret Soltan has more dirt on this, here.

Kitzhaber tells Knight, Frohnmayer to bug off from University of Nike board

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8/16/2013 update: The good governor’s nominations are due Monday. Jonathan Cooper has the story for the AP, in the RG.

The official version is that they decided to withdraw their names from Gottfredson’s bizarre 50 person list of nominees. We are supposed to believe that President Gottfredson neglected to get their permission before nominating them? It’s possible, since last I heard he’d put Jim Bean in charge of dealing with the board. Or maybe this petition from students had an effect.

I suppose this means Pat Kilkenny is still on the list, but his recent land dealings near UO probably disqualify him too:

PORTLAND — Nike co-founder Phil Knight has asked Gov. John Kitzhaber not to consider him for a spot on a new governing board for the University of Oregon. Knight was one of nearly 50 people recommended by UO President Michael Gottfredson for the 11- to 15-member board. 

Knight’s assistant says in a letter dated Aug. 9 that Knight was honored to be included but would like to have his name withdrawn from consideration. The letter says Knight will continue to support the university and looks forward to working with the new board. 

Two other prominent officials also withdrew their names: Dave Frohnmeyer (sic), a former attorney general and UO president, and Ann Aiken, a federal district judge based in Eugene.

7/31/2013 update: Diane Dietz has an excellent story in the RG, comparing the approaches of OUS President Ed Ray and UO President Mike Gottfredson on the role of independent boards. Read it all. No quotes from Gottfredson of course, I don’t think he’s done an interview before or since this one with Dash Paulson for the ODE on Jan 28.

Gottfredson’s handling of this has been a disaster. First the “asked and answered” meeting with the faculty, his evasive written comments on the implications for the Senate and Constitution, the appointment of Bean to write the by-laws, putting Geller and Rudnick in charge of negotiating shared governance and refusing to let them even mention the Senate in the CBA, and now this bizarre list of trustee recommendations to Kitzhaber.

7/30/2013: According to Betsy Hammond of the Oregonian, this is the list UO sent to Kitzhaber for potential UO Board Trustees. His selections will be public Aug 19. Obviously this is the kitchen sink list produced to avoid offending anyone, not Gottfredson’s real recommendations, or forecasts of what Kitzhaber might be willing to accept politically: