Paul Callister is the director of the Leon E. Bloch Law Library and professor of law. He joined UMKC in 2003 after serving as an assistant professor of library administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Prior to becoming a librarian, Professor Callister practiced law for nine years at the firm of Callister and Callister in Glendale, California, near Los Angeles. His practice areas included qualified retirement plans, estate planning, tax, business and professional organizations, and business transactions. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University (BA, philosophy major), Cornell Law School (JD, Business Law and Regulation concentration), and the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MS). At Cornell, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Review.
Professor Callister’s research interests include the pedagogy of legal research instruction; copyright and licensing law; legal history as it relates to the history of the book and ancient forms of media; and the relationship of current information environments to legal institutions, jurisprudence, stability and the rule of law.
He is working on the second edition of his book, Field Guide to Legal Research (West Academic, forthcoming), which will be suited for advanced legal research courses and as a refresher handbook for new attorneys and clerks. He is also working on a book with co-author Dana Neacsu, Law from Memory to Generative AI: Web of Beliefs, Cognitive Authority & Technology (forthcoming). In spring 2021, the law school awarded Professor Callister the Marvin Lewis Rich Award for his last three years of combined scholarship and teaching.
Professor Callister teaches Copyright and legal research courses.
