Professor Emeritus Michael Bixby is being honored as a Leader in Law by the Idaho Business Review. According to the selection criteria, honorees are “dedicated and skilled, have a strong work ethic and show tenacity. Experience counts, excellence is expected and compassion is essential.” Honorees are individuals whose leadership in the legal profession and in the community has had a positive impact on Idaho. Michael Bixby fits the bill.
Bixby has been part of the College of Business and Economics at Boise State for 35 years. He was a full-time professor in the Department of Management from 1981 to 2012, teaching classes dealing with legal and regulatory issues, including intellectual property, employment law, workplace safety and business ethics. Since his retirement, he has taught a law course in the Boise State Online MBA program for the last four years, and he has also continued to teach a few sessions of the Executive MBA course each year.
Before becoming a faculty member at Boise State, Bixby practiced law as an attorney for 11 years in Michigan. His undergraduate and law degrees are from the University of Michigan. He and his wife also served in the U.S. Peace Corps from 1968-70.
Bixby has had 18 articles published in academic and professional journals and has presented over 60 academic papers at conferences. He has authored and co-authored 2 textbooks, currently in use by many business schools. The first one, The Legal Environment of Business (he is the lead author) is now in its 6th edition (2014) and is published by Pearson Publications. In 2013 he co-authored the revised 6th edition of International Business Law, published by Prentice Hall. Bixby is an active member of the National Academy of Legal Studies in Business and has served as president of the Northwest Regional division of this organization. He is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and was for 15 years a member of the Governing Council of the Corporate and Business Law Section of the State Bar of Idaho.
In 2006 Professor Bixby was chosen as the winner of the Foundation Scholars Award for Teaching, the highest honor accorded to a faculty member at Boise State. He was the first College of Business faculty member to win the award. He has also been twice recognized as the Faculty Member of the Year in the College of Business by the ASBSU student organization and was the winner of the Teaching Award in the Management Department in 2008. In 2012, Bixby was given the Distinguished Career Achievement Award by the National Academy of Legal Studies in Business, an award given only every few years by the organization.
Congratulations to Michael Bixby — the College of Business and Economics has been lucky to have you.