on campus
I always try to find time for students outside of class. You get to be part of a student’s life at a very important and exciting time, and it’s great to mentor them throughout their careers. schools around the world and serves on the executive committee of the American Association of Law Schools’ contracts section. Four years ago, his Tennessee Law Review article “Bullshit Promises,” coauthored with Willamette Law Professor Karen Sandrik and focusing on deceptive contract language, drew praise from Elizabeth Warren, now the U.S. senator from Massachusetts. “Treat yourself to reading ‘Bullshit Promises,’” she wrote. “It is well-written and engaging, and it makes an important point about the shortcomings of consumer contract law.” Contract law scholars tend to approach their subject from an economic or a philosophical perspective, says Stanford University Law School Professor Dick Craswell, a contracts law expert who knows Bridgeman’s work well. Bridgeman, he says, is sympathetic to arguments from both perspectives. “He’s one of the few people trying to provide corrective justice theories to contract law,” Craswell says. “It’s an important line of inquiry and he’s right out front with it.” Bridgeman, 41, grew up in Alabama. His father was a computer programmer and his mother worked for a junior college helping laid-off factory workers find new training and jobs. Bridgeman was intrigued by law as a youth, and when he enlisted in the U.S. Army out of high school he worked as a legal clerk in Alaska. The lawyers there mentored him and he picked up a lot about the law, but then Vanderbilt gave him “a great offer” to study philosophy. He took it. After receiving his master’s and doctorate in philosophy, Bridgeman decided to try law school. He enrolled at Vanderbilt, serving as articles editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. Bob Rasmussen, dean of the law school at the University of Southern California, was Bridgeman’s contracts professor at Vanderbilt. “He was the type of student you loved to have in class; he always asked a question that made the discussion better,” Rasmussen says. “He wrote one of the best contracts exams I ever graded.”
he wants to be a dean, he says, is that he wants to help professors make a difference in students’ lives the way professors made a difference in his. “Teaching is all about understanding things from the students’ point of view, and I always try to keep that in mind,” he says. “I always try to find time for students outside of class. You get to be part of a student’s life at a very important and exciting time, and it’s great to mentor them throughout their careers.” In his spare time Bridgeman fixes up old cars, something he did as a teenager with his grandfather. (The fixer-uppers aren’t for show; Bridgeman drives a 1976 Porsche that he repaired after it sat idle for five years). He has two grown sons, one of whom has followed him into teaching. His wife, Beth King, is a pediatrician who will join Salem Pediatric Clinic in the fall. They enjoy outdoor activities like hiking and fly-fishing, which is one of the reasons he’s looking forward to relocating to Oregon. Rasmussen, of USC, has followed Bridgeman’s career closely over the years. He says he isn’t surprised Bridgeman went into teaching, or that he got the offer to run a law school. “It’s clear Curtis would’ve had a lot of opportunities,” Rasmussen said. “The fact that he was chosen for this says good things about Willamette.”
Bridgeman says education made a huge difference in his life and he’s grateful for the donors who paid for the scholarships that enabled him to earn multiple advanced degrees. One of the reasons
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