The dean of the Kansas University School of Law plans to remain the state’s lead attorney on appeals issues.

Steve McAllister said Monday he would continue as state solicitor under Phill Kline, who was elected Kansas attorney general last month.

“I love doing it,” McAllister said. “It’s a chance to really be a lawyer, and it keeps me in some ways fresh and energized as far as current cases go. It’s a good experience to take into the classroom.”

McAllister began working in 1996 as a special assistant for Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall. She created the state solicitor position in 1999, the same year McAllister became dean at KU.

McAllister oversees state cases that are appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Whitney Watson, a spokesman for Kline, confirmed the attorney general-elect planned to retain McAllister as state solicitor. Kline was at a conference in Florida and wasn’t available for comment.

Among McAllister’s highlights as state solicitor have been preparing briefs to defend the state’s sexual predator law and defending the state’s policy on self-incrimination for inmates.

McAllister said the state solicitor position didn’t have much to do with politics, though both he and Kline are Republicans.

“I don’t know (Kline) that well,” McAllister said. “For a good lawyer, it doesn’t, or shouldn’t, matter. If there’s a state statute that’s challenged, I defend it to the best of my ability using the case law.”

McAllister, who also is a member of Kline’s transition team, said he told Kline he would only take the job on a part-time basis, as he did under Stovall. He said he never works more than one day a week for the attorney general’s office.

“The bottom line is I do it for two reasons,” he said. “First, I believe in the client – the people of Kansas deserve excellent representation. And second, I just enjoy it. I love the process.”