Dr. Zulma Toro has announced the appointment of Paula Casey, interim dean at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law, to the position of interim vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school at UALR.

The new appointment is effective July 1, 2013.

Dean Casey has spent the majority of her career at the law school teaching legal skills and serving as the trial team coach. She has taught at the law school since 1979 and is its longest serving faculty member.

From 1990 until 1992, while on a leave of absence from the school, she was Chief Counsel and Legislative Director for U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed her as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

She left that office in 2001 to return to the law school.

Casey graduated with her bachelor’s degree from East Central University of Oklahoma in 1973 and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville School of Law in 1977.