Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harris L Hartz will be the keynote speaker for the University of New Mexico School of Law commencement scheduled for Saturday, May 17 at 1 p.m. on the School of Law's north patio area. The topic of Judge Hartz's speech will be "Respect."
Hartz has been a member of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals since December, 2001. From 1989 to 1999 he was a judge on the New Mexico Court of Appeals, serving as chief judge from 1997 to 1999. And from 1996 until 2005, Hartz served as an advisor for the American Law Institute Restatement of the Law (Third) Agency. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was Case and Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Judge Hartz graduated valedictorian from Farmington High School before continuing his education at Harvard. En route to graduating summa cum laude in Physics at Harvard he was president of the Harvard-Radcliffe International Relations Council and one of nine members of his class of 1,200 who was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. After graduating from Harvard, Hartz went on to graduate studies in physics at Princeton with a National Science Foundation Fellowship and Woodrow Wilson Honorary Fellowship before returning to Harvard to study law.
Judge Hartz is a member of the United States Judicial Conference's Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure. He served as Chair of the Appellate Judges Conference of the ABA in 2004-05. He has been active in the American Law Institute since 1993. Hartz also served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico from 1972-75.