Professor, School of Law
2018
Bio:
Professor Gary Maveal accepted the University of Detroit (now University of Detroit Mercy) School of Law faculty position in 1988 as Assistant Professor, promoted to full professor in 2006. His tenure was conferred in May 1996. Professor Maveal has held numerous positions within the School of Law including Assistant Dean for Student Affairs (1989-1991), Director of the Urban Law Clinic (2000-2001), Director of Faculty Research & Development (2011-2013), and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (2004-2010). Just prior to retirement, Professor Meveal taught Civil Procedure and Remedies, American Inn of Court.
Prior to joining the university, Gary Maveal worked in the Office of the United States Attorney, Department of Justice Detroit Michigan as Assistant U.S. Attorney to United States Attorneys Leonard R. Gilman, Joel M. Shere, and Roy C. Hayes. In this position he handled civil and criminal appeals, worked in the civil trial division, was Chairperson of the Hiring Committee, Director’s Award for Outstanding Service Committee, Acting Chief of the Appellate Division, and was an Instructor in the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute on Appellate Advocacy & Forfeiture as well as the Training Programs on Privacy Act and Forfeitures. In the early 1980’s, Professor Maveal served as a Law Clerk to James P. Purchill, United States District Judge, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan and Law Clerk to Susan D. Borman, Wayne County Circuit Judge, Wayne County Circuit Court, Detroit Michigan.
Professor Maveal was honored with the University faculty/staff/administrator’s 2016 Agere ex Missione Award for best living the University’s mission “to integrate the intellectual, spiritual, ethical and social development of our students.” Written by Phyllis L. Crocker, Dean and Professor, School of Law “Professor Maveal has devoted his teaching, scholarship, and service to the highest ideals of a Jesuit and Sisters of Mercy education. Inside the classroom, Professor Maveal creates a rigorous academic environment that challenges students to develop their identities as professionals. In his first year Civil Procedure class, new law students learn both the substantive law and the discipline they need to become skilled practitioners. Prof. Maveal is one of those professors who students respect and like – he enjoys the reputation of an engaged, tough, and fair faculty person.”
“What particularly recommends Prof. Maveal for the Agere ex Missione Awards, Dean Crocker wrote, is his work outside the classroom. Prof. Maveal knows that many students come to law because they see a world that does not always treat people fairly and with dignity, and because they want to have a role in creating a just world. He consistently looks for ways to nurture this idealism by bringing in outside speakers and promoting events…his work helps law students see a path from their ideals to professional life filled with purpose, and he creates opportunities for student to engage their interests in meaningful ways.”
Dean Crocker further writes “Professor Maveal is the consummate unassuming professor. His emeritus nomination significantly downplays the considerable impact he has had on generations of students, on the law through his articles, and on the culture of the law school through his service. As just one example, for 28 years he oversaw one of our most successful programs – The Detroit Mercy American Inn of Court. The Inn is part of a national program in which lawyers, judges, and law students meet monthly to present on and discuss legal advocacy, professionalism, and ethics. Every year, the forum gave our students unparalleled access to prominent lawyers and judges who in turn worked so closely with our students in presenting trial-related scenarios. Professor Maveal created the litigation case file used throughout the year and worked closely each month with the teams presenting the material.”
Professor Maveal’s writing for both the Law Review and the Bar Journal covered such topics as first primer on federal practice, criminalizing civil forfeitures, multi-tasking at sentencing, access to information held by state and privacy, unemployed criminal alternative to drug forfeitures, Detroit Legal Aid Bureau, and Michigan peremptory orders. In the emeritus nomination it is cited that Professor Maveal’s article on federal presentence investigation “has been cited by dozen of articles and an amicus brief in U.S. v. Booker.” His article on peremptory order rule in the Wayne Law Review has “influenced the justices to limit their use of that device and has helped to temper the Court’s partisan division.”
Preview of U.S. Supreme Court Cases, National Law Journal, Detroit Legal News, Michigan Appellate Practice Journal have all published Professor Maveal’s works. Subjects covered in his articles include promoting civil culture, confiscating severance payments of corporate executives who take federal jobs, forfeit land owned by innocent person purchased with proceeds of illegal drug sales, forfeiture of drug assets, Alaska Gold Mine and interstate commerce, forfeiting property as part of a guilty plea, affordable arbitration, class action democracy, Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act, U.S. Tax code favors rich, and much more.
Beyond writing, Professor Maveal has delivered numerous talks. As a law professor who teaches about current laws and law practices, he has spoken on criminal and civil forfeiture, federal and state privacy statutes, attorney client privileges and the corporate client, civil rights after 9/11, lawyer as activist, testimonial privileges, judicial independence, and ballot initiatives.
Service to the School of Law, the University, and the law community is evidenced over his many years with the University. For the School of Law, he worked on the transition during the 1990 consolidation of University of Detroit with Mercy College of Detroit, ABA inspections, faculty recruitment, hiring administrators, and other committees. According to the nomination, he has been involved in “sponsoring student organizations and putting them in contact with practitioners for both their programs and for professional opportunities….he served as faculty advisor to the student chapters of the National Lawyers Guild and American Constitution Society and recruited numerous guest speakers for those groups….served on the Board of Michigan Lawyers Chapters of ACS…volunteered with the Attorney Discipline Board of the State Bar…served on the State Bar’s Publication and Website Advisory Committee….State Bar’s Civil Procedure Committee, Attorney Discipline Board hearing panels, chaired panels in Detroit and Ann Arbor, issuing more than 30 decisions, drafting nearly all of the panel’s opinions.”
In 2018, Professor Maveal received the School of Law’s highest faculty honor, the James T. Barnes Memorial Faculty Award which recognizes scholarship, teaching excellence, and public service. He has held bar memberships in United States Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, State Bar of Michigan, and American Bar Association.
Professor Maveal holds a B.A. in Political Science from Wayne State University and J.D. from University of Detroit School of Law. He graduated summa cum laude, was a member of the Justice Frank Murphy Honor Society, and received the American Justice Book Awards in Administrative and Constitutional Law.
Professor Maveal’s nomination for Professor Emeritus was approved and conferred by Dr. Antoine M. Garibaldi, President of University of Detroit Mercy on August 16, 2018.