Ronald E. Wheeler

Ronald E. Wheeler

Associate Dean, Fineman & Pappas Law Libraries

Associate Professor of Law and Legal Research

BA, University of Michigan-Dearborn
MLIS, Wayne State University
JD, University of Michigan Law School


Biography

Professor Wheeler, in the interim role of Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, & Engagement is responsible for assuring that classroom climate concerns are appropriately addressed whether they flow through the official Classroom Climate Reporting Portal or from students who drop into his office. He further works to help faculty, staff, and students both understand and work toward implementing best practices for equity and inclusion in everything we do here at BU Law.

Ronald Wheeler, a recognized leader in the area of legal research instruction, has served in various law library management roles at law schools across the country, including Suffolk University Law School, the University of San Francisco School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law, and the University of New Mexico School of Law. Wheeler has taught legal research in various contexts including in stand-alone first year legal research courses, upper division courses, online, and in study abroad programs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Linz, Austria. Wheeler also taught a course on US Legal Research to Chinese law students at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, China during the summer of 2012. Beyond legal research Wheeler has taught research and writing seminars like Queer Legal Scholarship which addresses the intersection of sexual orientation law and academic literature, Critical Race Theory, and he taught Critical Thinking in the Pre-Law Summer Institute for American Indians and Alaska Natives at the American Indian Law Center in Albuquerque, NM.  Wheeler hopes to soon complete developing courses like Black Legal Scholarship and Critical Legal Research.

Professor Wheeler’s scholarship focusing on legal research techniques, legal research instruction, and algorithm-driven search engines gained him national attention, and he is regularly called upon to speak about innovations in teaching and other legal research-related topics. He is a well-known author and speaker addressing issues related to law library management; the role of the law library in legal education; and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Access; and Critical Legal Research. Wheeler penned several installments of Diversity Dialogues, a regular feature in Law Library Journal which aimed to engage scholarly conversation on issues of diversity and inclusion in librarianship and the legal profession. In 2014, Wheeler was named to the Lawyers of Color “50 under 50” list of minority attorneys making an impact on legal education.

From 2016 to 2017, Director Wheeler served as president of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), becoming the first African-American male president of AALL. He was appointed to chair AALL’s Inclusion, Diversity & Equity Awareness Special Committee whose work from 2020 to 2022 resulted in the adoption by AALL of several of the Special Committee’s recommendations.  Wheeler is a member of the Law Librarians of New England (LLNE), the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL), the British & Irish Association of Law Libraries (BIALL), and the Association of Boston Law Librarians (ABLL). He serves on the executive boards of the New England Law Library Consortium (NELLCO), the Boston Academic Law Library Collective (BALLCO), and the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC).

Publications

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  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Unmasking AALL’s IDEA Special Committee: A Closer Look at the Committee’s Process for Creating AALL’s New Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy AALL Spectrum (2023)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, An Introduction to “Critical Legal Research: The Next Wave” 101 Boston University Law Review Online (2021)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler & Phebe Huderson-Poydras, How Law Libraries Can Help Tell the Black Lives Matter Movement’s Story 25 AALL Spectrum (2020)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Georgia Practice Materials: A Selective Annotated Bibliography, in State Practice Materials: Annotated Bibliographies (Frank G. Houdek & Adeen Postar,2018)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler & Jenna Fegreus, Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories: A Bibliography of Government Documents, Periodical Articles, and Books, 1st Congress-114th Congress, 4th ed. (2018)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, On Empathy 108 Law Library Journal (2016)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, About Microaggressions 108 Law Library Journal (2016)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Soft Skills - The Importance of Cultivating Emotional Intelligence 20 AALL Spectrum (2016)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Law Librarianship 107 Law Library Journal (2015)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, We All Do It: Unconscious Behavior, Bias, and Diversity 107 Law Library Journal (2015)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Is This the Law Library or an Episode of the Jetsons? 20 Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute (2015)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Library Director as Opportunity Identifier, in Academic Law Library Director Perspectives: Case Studies and Insights (Michelle M. Wu,2015)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Stereotype Threat and Law Librarianship 106 Law Library Journal (2014)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Let's Talk About Race 106 Law Library Journal (2014)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, AALL Diversity Redelineated 106 Law Library Journal (2014)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Teaching WestlawNext: Next Steps for Teachers of Legal Research 21 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research & Writing (2013)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler & Nancy P. Johnson, State Documents Bibliography: Georgia (2012)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Does WestlawNext Really Change Everything: The Implications of WestlawNext on Legal Research 103 Law Library Journal (2011)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, A Tale of One CALI Lesson: Librarians Share a New Approach 14 AALL Spectrum (2010)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Choosing the Top Candidate: Best Practices in Academic Law Library Hiring 100 Law Library Journal (2008)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler & Stephanie Davidson, Learning While They Work: The Use of Student Assistants in Two Academic Law Libraries 25 ALL-SIS Newsletter (2006)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, James M. Donovan, James G. Durham & Stephanie Wilson, Sexual Orientation and the Law: A Research Bibliography Selectively Annotating Legal Literature Through 2005 (2006)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Ruminations on Tenure 24 RIPS Law Librarian (2002)
    Scholarly Commons
  • Ronald E. Wheeler, Researching International Environmental Law 7 New Mexico Bar Journal (2001)
    Scholarly Commons

In the Media

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  • Law Quadrangle February 12, 2025

    Beyond the Stacks: The Modern Evolution of Law Libraries

    Ronald Wheeler and Stefanie Weigmann are quoted.
    read more

  • Daily Free Press November 1, 2020

    SJC Chief Justice Nominee Could be First Black Woman to Lead Mass. Supreme Court

    Jade Brown and Ronald Wheeler are quoted.
    read more

  • Law.com July 20, 2020

    Why Acknowledging Implicit Bias Is Key for Better Legal Research

    Ronald Wheeler quoted.
    read more

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Activities & Engagements

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Courses

Critical Legal Research: LAW JD 797

3 credits

This seminar explores the ways in which the tools (both print and electronic) used to conduct traditional legal research serve as hegemonic forces that reinforce the status quo and entrench societal oppressions. It also attempts to apply principles of Critical Race Theory to the legal research process both to uncover these hegemonic forces and to explore ways to overcome them. It draws on the work of Professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic and the innovative and novel ideas and theories being developed by newer, emerging, scholars applying the approach that is now known as Critical Legal Research (CLR). This they apply to their research, their pedagogy, and their research agendas. Indeed, Critical Legal Research has become a movement within law libraries and within the scholarly community. This research seminar can be described as a part of that movement. It is designed to meet the needs and serve the interests of aspiring public interest lawyers, students interested in social justice issues, and students interested in applying the principles of Critical Legal Studies or Critical Race Theory to their contemporary legal research projects, research behaviors, or legal studies. It complements the growing array of seminars and other courses offered here at BU Law that examine the practice of law through a critical lens. Topics to be covered include the legal research process, the limitations inherent in each step of that process, emerging critical approaches to conducting legal research, critical legal scholarship, critical race theory more specifically, and emerging legal research technologies and the specific shortcomings attributable to each. PREREQUISITE: Successful completion of both Lawyering Skills I and Lawyering Skills II. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: The capstone of this course will be a 6,000-word paper on a contemporary issue of justice OR an area of critical legal scholarship of interest to the student. This paper may serve as the foundation for a law review note or a foundation for completion of the Upper-Class Writing Requirement. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar, or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.

SPRG 2025: LAW JD 797 A1 , Jan 13th to Apr 23rd 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 8:30 am 10:30 am 3 Ronald E. Wheeler LAW 204