Directory

Elizabeth Van Fossen

Collection Development Librarian; Adjunct Professor of Law

Staff

School of Law

Profile

Professor Van Fossen graduated from Miami University with her BA in English Literature and Political Science. A couple of years in the working world, testing and disproving the widely proclaimed chestnut that employers were eager to hire esoteric Bachelor of Arts degree holders, convinced her to follow her father’s footsteps into law school at The Ohio State University. 

An interesting internship with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, Court of Claims Division as a 2L ruled out any law job that required regular visits to maximum security prisons. A job as a 3L in a law firm specializing in worker’s compensation crossed that area of law off her list as well. Finally, JD in hand, she moved to Dayton where she, of course, got a job working for a law firm specializing in worker’s compensation and personal injury. After a long couple of years affirming that she was not interested in those areas of law at all, Professor Van Fossen hired on at a small general practice firm and experienced the joy of legal work that was both interesting and fulfilling. Her primary areas of practice included family law, real estate, and municipal law with a smattering of probate, and corporate.

A long break from full-time legal work ensued following the arrival of two full-time children. During that break, Professor Van Fossen kept her toes in the legal pool by teaching Real Estate in a class for students preparing to sit for their real estate sales license. This was followed by a position teaching legal research and writing as part of a Paralegal Associate’s Degree program. A highlight of the legal research and writing program curriculum was bringing the paralegal students to the law library at UDSL so they could experience legal research in a real law library. Those visits to the law library reignited a long-standing dream of becoming a librarian. Two years and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Kent State University later, Professor Van Fossen was hired as a law librarian here at UDSL and has been happily running the Acquisitions and Technical Services departments ever since. While at UDSL Professor Van Fossen has taught a section of Legal Pro I and Bar Pass and supervised an Independent Study. She is currently teaching Family Law in the Hybrid JD program. You can find her in her office (Rm 321H) in the Technical Services Department which is located on the third floor of the library, next to the library elevator. Her email address is: evanfossen1@udayton.edu.