Founding Faculty in the Spotlight: Stephen Safranek

We thought it would be a good idea to pay homage to the founding faculty at AMSOL here at the blog by briefly putting them under the spotlight. First in a series.

Stephen J. Safranek, Professor of Law
Professor Safranek began his law career as a clerk for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He then worked for Latham & Watkins in its Chicago office before beginning his teaching career. Professor Safranek has been inter-viewed on national television regarding constitutional law issues and has appeared on local and national radio programs. He teaches Contracts, Sales, State and Local Government, and Law, Ethics, and Public Policy. Professor Safranek holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of San Francisco, a Master of Arts from the University of Dallas, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Notre Dame.

Safranek's project TrueMarriage.net invites couples to sign written agreements in which they explicitly choose to use church tribunals and other dispute mechanisms to resolve marriage disputes. He is also interested in representing persons who entered a holy marriage and who now seek to have the civil courts recognize that marriage.

Here is a Story on Safranek's latest case with an excerpt below:

Ohio resident Marie Macfarlane, a University of Notre Dame Mechanical Engineer, gave up her career to be a stay-at-home mom and is now challenging the divorce court's jurisdiction over her family. Though no one accused her of being a bad mother, a court ordered that her husband get full custody of her four young children even though it placed her three year old into day care. Her lawyer, Stephen Safranek a constitutional law professor at Ave Maria School of Law, is arguing that the civil courts do not have full jurisdiction over her religious marriage as the Catholic Church's canon law limits divorce options. Macfarlane is awaiting a decision from the church court in Rome, the Apostolic Tribunal of the Roman Rota.
TrueMarriage.net