Ray Nimmer is truly one of Houston’s treasures.

The Leonard Childs Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, Ray is one of the nation’s leading authorities on business and bankruptcy law, computer information licensing, e-commerce, and related intellectual property issues, all of which he has addressed in the 20 or so books and numerous articles that he has written over his superlative 30+ year teaching career.

Even more importantly, Ray is a gifted teacher who has taught a remarkably broad variety of courses at the UH Law Center over the past 30 years, including Contracts, Contract Drafting, Evidence, Bankruptcy, Corporate Reorganization Law, Internet Law, Electronic Commerce, Secured Financing Law, Negotiable Instruments, Copyright Law, Information Law, Sales, and Licensing Law. Somehow, Ray has even found the time to maintain a blog.

For the past couple of years, Ray has been serving as the Interim Dean at the law school, where he has done an excellent job of patching things up after the divisive resignation of the previous dean, Nancy Rapaport. Thus, I was happy to see this UH press release Wednesday confirming Ray’s appointment to that position (Mary Flood’s Chron article on the announcement is here). Ray released the following statement to friends, alumni and students:

As many of you know, in 2006 I agreed to serve as interim dean of the Law Center while a nationwide search for a permanent dean was conducted. That search has now been completed – and today I have accepted the position of Law Center Dean offered to me by Dr. Donald Foss, the provost of the University of Houston, subject to the approval of the UH Board of Regents.In many ways, it remains business as usual at our school. Two years ago, this is what I told my team when I stepped in as interim dean:

Here’s what you can expect from me. I am pragmatic, oriented to understanding and explicating the role of law and lawyers in society, and I am committed to leading a team that will distinguish our Law Center as being among the best in academia and a major factor in the practical practice of law. I believe in action and achievement. I applaud people who target goals—and invest the necessary work to achieve them. And I am determined to give our highly skilled faculty, administrators and students the support they need to maneuver and achieve.

That’s been my approach over the past two years as we energized the Law Center and continued the “pursuit of excellence” in everything we do. Our momentum is reflected in our 15-point improvement in national rankings, two “Top 10” specialty programs, and record-high LSAT scores for our newest class.I took the job of interim dean for a simple reason: because I believed the Law Center was on the cusp of great achievement, and I wanted to help my school reach that goal. Today, I am accepting the position of permanent dean for the same reason, and I am 100% committed to pushing us higher into the top echelon of Tier 1 law schools.It is an honor following the seven men and women who previously served as permanent dean and contributed to the greatness of our school. With help from the entire Law Center community, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.

Congratulations to Ray for the much-deserved appointment and to the UH administration for making the right decision.