Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost

Associate Vice President and Chief of Staff
Yale University, B.A.
Stanford University, J.D.
Contact: 612-625-0051, or reich002@umn.edu

As Chief of Staff to the Provost, Ms. Paulsen is responsible for preparing the annual workplan for the Provost’s Office, and for ensuring that directives and initiatives are implemented in a timely and effective manner. She advises the Provost on a wide variety of administrative issues, including the development and execution of policies and the effective utilization of human, fiscal, and physical resources. As Chief of Staff, Ms. Paulsen serves as the Provost’s primary liaison to the Board of Regents, to senior campus and system administrators, and to other governance officials, and she represents the Provost and the University, as appropriate, to internal and external constituencies.

Sharon Reich Paulsen earned her B.A. degree, summa cum laude, from Yale University, where she received the William M. Massee Award for her senior economics thesis, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. degree from Stanford Law School, where she was Note Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and received the Board of Editors Award for her editorial contributions. Ms. Paulsen then clerked for the Honorable Harlington Wood, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Following her clerkship, Ms. Paulsen joined the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. through the Civil Division Honors Program, where she served as a trial attorney from 1984 through 1988. She then joined the law firm of Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis in the Business Litigation Department.

Ms. Paulsen became Associate Dean at the University's Law School in 1991. Ms. Paulsen has lectured inside and outside the University community on evidence, ethics, litigation, legal writing, and legal education issues. She was appointed by the Minnesota Supreme Court to the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board in 1995, and served until 2001 as a hearing panel chair and on the Board's Opinion Committee. Ms. Paulsen is on the Board of Directors of the MacPhail School of Music, and also has served on the Board of the Loan Repayment Assistance Program-Minnesota (LRAP-MN). She is an active member of the Minnesota State Bar Association, and has served on a variety of task forces and committees, including service as co-chair of the Women in the Legal Profession Committee. She received the President’s Award in 2003 as a member of the Task Force on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. She has served on the Committee on Bar Admissions and Lawyer Performance of the Association of American Law Schools, and was a founding member of the Associate of Legal Writing Directors.

Her teaching interests are in Trial Practice, Depositions, Appellate Advocacy and Legal Writing, and she continues to teach regularly at the Law School. During the summer of 2007, she taught a six-week course in China for the Law School.

Books
ADVOCACY ON APPEAL, 3rd edition (2008) (with Bradley G. Clary and Michael J. Vanselow).
SUCCESSFUL FIRST DEPOSITIONS, 2nd edition (2006) (with Bradley G. Clary and Michael J. Vanselow).
ADVOCACY ON APPEAL (2001) (with Bradley G. Clary and Michael J. Vanselow).

On-Line Publications
CiteStation (2004) (with Bradley G. Clary, Pamela Lysaught, and Danielle Istl) (available through WestLaw)

Articles and Book Chapters
A Final Note, in Harlington Wood, Jr., AN UNMARKED TRAIL: THE ODYSSEY OF A FEDERAL JUDGE (2008).
The Woman as Employer, in WOMEN'S LEGAL GUIDE (Barbara R. Hauser ed., 1996).
Legal Writing Taught By Supervised Adjuncts, in THE POLITICS OF LEGAL WRITING (Jan Levine, Rebecca Cochran & Steve Johansen eds., 1995).
Securities, Antitrust, Franchise Act and Common Law Fraud Limitations Periods, in STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS (1990) (with Jeannine L. Lee).
State of Minnesota, in STATE ANTITRUST PRACTICE AND STATUTES (1990) (with John French, et al.)