Richard A. Zansitis is Advisor to the President for Rice University, and has been at Rice since 2001. He was the chief legal officer for the University and its Board of Trustees, and supervised an office of four other attorneys in Rice’s Office of the General Counsel, as well as selected and oversaw all outside counsel.  He received his B.A. in History with honors from the University of Chicago in 1976 and his J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law in 1979.  He is a member of the Texas (2003), Pennsylvania (1999), Illinois (1983) and New York (1980) State Bars.  Prior to his appointment at Rice, he had been General Counsel of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Associate General Counsel at the University of Chicago, and an attorney at firms in New York City and Chicago, specializing in labor and employment litigation for management.  He has also been a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. He is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys and the A.B.A.’s Sections of Litigation, Administrative Law and Practice and Labor and Employment Law.