Professor Jack Harrison
Wolf Chair in Ethics and Professional Identity
The David and Nancy Wolf Chair and Program in Ethics and ProfessionalIdentity, endowed by alumnus David Wolf and Nancy Wolf, enables Chase to offerand to continually expand education in the areas of ethical conduct and socialjustice. It supports programming related to ethics and professionalism,including enhancements to pro bono and public interest service by students,training in diversity, equity and inclusion, recruitment of anethicist-in-residence and development of lectureships in ethics andprofessional responsibility.
The chair was established in the 2023-24 academic year withthe appointment of Professor Jack Harrison. Professor Harrison, who joined theChase faculty in 2011, enhances the chair by his combined experience as apracticing lawyer, a law professor and a seminarian with a degree in theology.Prior to joining the Chase faculty he practiced for almost 20 years in majorCincinnati law firms. He teaches such courses as Torts, Civil Procedure,Professional Responsibility, and Sexual Orientation and the Law. He also directsthe Chase Center for Excellence in Advocacy, which offers students experienceprimarily in courtroom advocacy.
Inaugural Lecture - Woman in Gold
The newly endowed David and Nancy WolfChair in Ethics and Professional Identity at Chase College of Law presented its inaugural lecture on September 27, 2023 on a lawyer’s account ofrecovering artwork stolen during the Holocaust. The presentation by Los Angeles lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg, followed by his conversation with ChaseProfessor Jack Harrison, who holds the Wolf Chair, was held at theCincinnati Museum Center, and is in partnership with the Nancy& David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, located at the museumcenter.
Mr. Schoenberg is a litigator and grandson of Austrian-Americancomposer Arnold Schoenberg, who fled Nazi persecution prior to World War II, whotook on the challenge to recover for a family friend six paintings by GustavKlimt held by an Austrian state museum that ultimately were valued at more than$325 million. Among them was “Golden Lady,” an early 20th century portraitutilizing application of gold leaf, that gave name to the 2015 movie “Woman inGold” that recounted Mr. Schoenberg’s decade-long legal quest that began in thelate 1990s. At the time, Mr. Schoenberg had been practicing law for about 10years. Mr. Schoenberg successfully argued to the Supreme Court ofthe United States that his client, Maria Altman, from whose family the paintingshad been stolen in 1938 in Nazi Germany-aligned Austria, could sue Austria for theirreturn. He subsequently prevailed in 2006 in arbitration in Austria that thepaintings be returned to Ms. Altman, who had fled Austria following Germany’sunopposed annexation of the country.
The event was also sponsored by the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Bar Association, Northern Kentucky Bar Association and the Ohio Innocence Project.
