Arthur William Selover was born on July 9, 1871, on Long Island, New York. Eight years later, the family moved to Lake City, Minnesota. He graduated the University of Minnesota College of Law in 1894, and received a LL.M in 1897. He worked in the editorial department of West Publishing Company from 1894 to 1899, when he opened a law office in Minneapolis. Governor Christianson appointed him to the Probate Court of Hennepin County in 1928, and to the District Court in 1930. He was elected in 1932, reelected in 1938 and 1944, and retired in 1950. He died on August 25, 1956, at age 85.
While in private practice, he taught for more than 20 years at the Minnesota College of Law, and was its dean when it merged with the Minneapolis College of Law in 1940 (predecessors of the Mitchell-Hamline School of Law). He also found time to research and write three books on commercial law----two on negotiable instruments and another on banking. "The Law of Bank Collections" was published by the Keefe-Davidson Law Book Company of St. Paul in 1901.
It was noted in 4 The Brief of Phi Delta Phi 199 (1903):
"The subject of this work is one which has been much considered in existing treatises on bills and notes, negotiable instruments, banks and banking, etc. There is, therefore, as it seems to us, no crying need for a book on bank collections. But the topic is one of considerable vitality and importance and we are much inclined to the opinion that a sound and practical treatise on any legal subject of this nature will not go a-begging. The work before us possesses, in fair measure, both of these characteristics.
"Mr. Selover is a member of Dillon chapter and has had special training in legal text writing, having been for some time on the staff of the West Publishing Company. Beyond a few split infinitives, his style is good."
It was also noted in 28 The Banking Law Journal 704 (August 1911):
"We have received Selover on Bank Collections, also published by the Keefe-Davidson Law Book Company, of St. Paul, Minn. The law of bank collections is an intricate subject and it is not extensively treated in the books on the law of banking. It is a subject which requires careful treatment and well planned grouping of cases, in order that the reader may find what he is after, and, having found it, understand what he reads. This book fulfills these requirements.
"It is complete in its treatment of the questions which it takes up and devotes three hundred pages to the discussion of questions of bank collections, which, in general works on the law of banking, are given but a small portion of that space."
==========
Posted MLHP: August 11, 2016.
View Article