CHICAGO, Aug. 10, 2011 — Linda J. Rusch, a professor at Gonzaga University School of Law, has begun a one-year term as chair of the American Bar Association Section of Business Law, concluding in August 2012.

Rusch is co-director of the law school’s Commercial Law Center. Before joining Gonzaga, she was a professor of commercial law at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. Earlier in her career, she practiced commercial law and bankruptcy with the Minneapolis firm of Faegre & Benson and clerked for U.S. District Judge Milton I. Shadur of the Northern District of Illinois.

Rusch has been involved in the revision of the Uniform Commercial Code. From 1996 to 1999, she served as associate reporter for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the American Law Institute Drafting Committee to Revise Article 2 of the UCC. From 2000 to 2003, she served as a co-reporter for and member of the NCCUSL-ALI Drafting Committee to revise UCC Article 7. She currently serves as a member of the Permanent Editorial Board of the UCC.

Aside from her various leadership roles with the ABA and Business Law Section, Rusch is actively involved in many national and local bar groups. She is past president of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and a member of the American Law Institute and the American College of Bankruptcy.

Rusch has published numerous articles and books on the Uniform Commercial Code and bankruptcy, and she is a frequent lecturer on those topics.

Rusch received her bachelor’s degree from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., and her law degree from the University of Iowa.

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the world’s largest voluntary professional membership organization. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

With nearly 60,000 members, the ABA Section of Business Law is one of the association’s largest sections. It provides business lawyers with education and analysis that furthers the development and improvement of business law, and it helps its members serve their clients competently, efficiently and professionally.