The Faculty Lounge

UCLA School of Law Seeks Dean

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The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) invites inquiries, nominations and applications for the position of Dean of the UCLA School of Law.

Founded in 1949, the UCLA School of Law is one of the youngest top-ranked law schools in the United States and is committed to advancing the field of law through strong traditions of excellence in teaching, curricular innovation, influential scholarship and public engagement. One of UCLA’s 12 professional schools, the law school has approximately 200 full-time and part-time faculty (of whom 70 are tenure track) who teach approximately 1,400 students enrolled in Juris Doctor (J.D.), Master of Laws (LL.M.), Master of Legal Studies (M.L.S.) and Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) programs. The school houses a wide array of centers and institutes in such areas as business law, climate change, entertainment law, human rights, immigration law and policy, international and comparative law, reproductive health, technology law and policy, and sexual orientation and gender identity law. The school offers academic specializations in business law and policy; critical race studies; environmental law; international and comparative law; media, entertainment and technology law; law and philosophy; and public interest law and policy. Eight concurrent degree programs allow students to pursue a J.D. along with a degree in African American studies, American Indian studies, management, philosophy, public health, public policy, social welfare and urban planning. UCLA Law faculty are recognized worldwide for their contributions to scholarship, teaching and law reform in a broad spectrum of fields that have significant societal impact — including constitutional law, civil rights and critical race studies, environmental law and policy, criminal law, corporate law, public interest law, immigration law, international law and intellectual property.

 

Brooklyn Law Seeks Dean and President

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Brooklyn Law School seeks a new Dean and President, with a target appointment date of July 1, 2023. Founded in 1901 as a freestanding law school, BLS is an incubator for the bar, bench, and civic and commercial leadership across New York City, the metropolitan area, and the nation. The new Dean and President will lead a nimble institution with a faculty noted for its collegiality, scholarly impact, and the quality of its doctrinal and experiential teaching. BLS’s 100 staff members play an integral role in realizing its mission. BLS is the destination of choice for a richly diverse student population, enrolling 1,079 full-time and 105 part-time students. The incoming first-year class is the most racially diverse in BLS’s history. Many of BLS’s 23,000 alumni play important roles in New York City; others reside and work in 49 states and 50 foreign countries.

Reporting to the Board of Trustees, the new Dean and President will provide fresh vision in initiating comprehensive strategic planning; grow the faculty by attracting scholars and teachers of distinction and promise; oversee the roll-out of non-JD programs now up for regulatory approval; leverage a newly expanded and restructured advancement staff to increase annual fundraising and plan and execute a capital campaign; recruit and appoint a new chief operating officer to upgrade administrative infrastructure; and guide and amplify ongoing efforts to improve bar passage, enhance the student experience and related outcomes, and promote staff wellbeing and alumni engagement.

 

Chapman Law Seeks Dean

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Chapman University, a private university recognized for its culture of innovation as well as excellence in research and cutting-edge teaching, is extending its search for candidates for the position of Dean of the Dale E. Fowler School of Law.

Founded in 1995, the Dale E. Fowler School of Law (Fowler Law) based in Orange County, California is one of the premier private law schools in Southern California and consistently recognized as one of the top law schools in the nation for practical training. The School’s next Dean will inherit an outstanding market position, a thriving enrollment, and a community united in the shared goal of providing an outstanding legal education. The School aims to build on the momentum generated in recent years by record fundraising – including an extraordinarily generous $55 million naming gift; continuous improvement in U.S. News and World Report rankings; and increases in the academic profile and diversity of the incoming class. With these tailwinds, Fowler Law seeks to extend its reputation throughout California, regionally, and nationally through strategic management of its opportunities, resources, and excellent alumni partners.

Fowler Law offers a collaborative, personalized, and rigorous education that makes students more practice-ready than their counterparts at other schools. Ranked 16^th in the country for practical training, students have access to a wide array of experiential learning opportunities, including clinics, externships, practice-ready labs, and practice-oriented writing classes. With one of the best faculty-to-student ratios among ABA-approved law schools, Fowler Law offers smaller class sizes and greater access to a distinguished faculty both in and out of the classroom.

 

Albany Law Seeks President and Dean

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Albany Law School, a private and independent law school based in Albany, New York, and known for its pioneering blend of practical education and critical scholarship, seeks applications and nominations for the position of President and Dean.

As the nation's oldest independent law school with alumni that include a United States President, two United States Supreme Court Justices, appellate judges, Fortune 500 CEOs and other prominent leaders and scholars, Albany Law School has earned its national reputation for excellence and is defined by its collegial community. Offering 18 areas of concentration for J.D. candidates, several dual-degree opportunities, LL.M. offerings, online graduate programs, and 3+3 accelerated programs, while maintaining an important affiliation with the University of Albany, Albany Law School plays a vital role in the higher education landscape of Upstate New York. Students, many of whom may not otherwise have had the opportunity to gain access to a legal education, thrive in a flexible, rigorous and experiential learning environment, and graduate prepared to make an immediate contribution as tomorrow’s leaders, engaged professionals, committed public servants, inspiring community change-agents, and creative problem solvers.

Reporting to the Board of Trustees, the President and Dean will be a collaborative, transparent, student-centered, and strategic leader who guides faculty, staff, students, and processes with empathy and integrity. This person must have a track record of distinguished management and administration, and must possess a deep commitment to student success, faculty teaching and scholarly engagement and the organizational and leadership skills necessary to attract and retain human and financial resources. The ideal candidate should have a sophisticated understanding of the changing landscape of legal education, respect and appreciation for shared governance, and fundraising experience. Of critical importance is a commitment to fostering Albany Law School's mission to connect the classroom to the profession, government, and the community through experience-based learning, engaged scholarship, and a robust network of alumni and supporters.

 

University of Mississippi School of Law Seeks Dean

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The University of Mississippi (www.olemiss.edu) invites nominations and applications for the position of Dean of the School of Law.

The University of Mississippi School of Law (http://law.olemiss.edu/) was established in 1854 and is the first and only public law school in the state. The School of Law has a record of hiring and retaining distinguished faculty and nationally recognized scholars and attracting highly qualified students. The School is known for its academic rigor, its seven robust clinic programs, three academic concentrations, and five law journals. In 2016, The National Jurist magazine named the University of Mississippi School of Law among the top 25 nationally for practical training available to students.

The School is also among the top law schools in the nation for access and equity.  In 2022, the Rutgers Law Review published an article that finds UM Law to lead among the top law schools for access and equity (https://rutgerslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/05_Mathis_Website.pdf). The School of Law also received a substantial grant from the University Equity in Action Support Fund to help us expand the school’s already thriving Fall HBCU Preview Day. The School of Law plans to continue this record of excellence by striving to meet the goals adopted by the faculty in the 2020 DEI Strategic plan (https://law.olemiss.edu/about/diversity/strategic-plan-for-diversity-inclusion-and-equity/).

Supporting the School’s strong commitment to academic and scholarly excellence is an endowment exceeding $38 million. The School of Law is located in a state-of-the-art, 120,000 square-foot facility. Accredited by the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association, the School is a member of the Association of American Law Schools.

 

Elon Law Seeks Dean

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Elon University School of Law (Elon Law), a forward-thinking law school known for its pioneering blend of experiential learning and critical scholarship, is extending its search for candidates for the position of Dean of the School of Law.

Located in Greensboro, North Carolina, Elon Law is the country’s preeminent school for engaged and experiential learning in law. With a focus on learning by doing, it integrates traditional classroom instruction with a required, full-time (30+ hours/week) field placement for every student, known as a Residency-in-Practice. The law school’s distinctive curriculum provides a logically-sequenced program of professional preparation. Elon Law’s innovative curriculum is accomplished in 2.5 years, which provides exceptional value by lowering tuition and permitting graduates early entry into their careers.

Elon Law’s shorter academic program benefits students by substantially reducing their debt load, an attractive proposition for many prospective students drawn to the school’s trimester-based academic calendar. The law school has enjoyed significant increases in applications and enrollment in recent years when most other law schools experienced declines. In 2021-22, total enrollment reached a historic high of 429 students, driven by a record number of students matriculating in the Class of December 2023.

Guided by its student-centered approach to legal education, Elon Law’s bar passage and post-graduate employment rates have seen consistent and significant increases since the implementation of the 2.5 year academic program. The increased bar passage rate has resulted from an investment in student success and undergirds the law school’s strong employment figures. Increased graduate employment rates are also attributable to Elon Law’s emphasis on experiential learning. The law school’s Residency-in-Practice Program ensures that students connect classroom learning with real-world practice. The Residency-in-Practice experience also provides students with insights that they bring back to the law school when they return to complete their studies.

Reaccredited in 2021 by the ABA, Elon Law seeks a collaborative, transparent and strategic leader who is energized and inspired by the school's entrepreneurial spirit and the opportunities presented by Elon University's considerable success, reputation, leadership in experiential education, and innovative culture.

 

ASU Law Seeks Dean

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Arizona State University seeks a dynamic and experienced leader to serve as Dean of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

Over the past decade, the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law (ASU Law) has transformed into one of the nation’s top 30 law schools, following a trajectory in scope, scale, and recognition that mirrors the astounding momentum of ASU. ASU Law offers an innovative approach to legal education that features experiential learning and a variety of programs and emphases that prepare students to thrive in a changing legal landscape. Committed to innovative teaching and research and serving communities both within Arizona and nationwide, ASU Law is home to distinguished faculty and passionate, talented, and socially conscious students.

The next Dean of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law will take the helm of the most dynamic law school in the country and will guide ASU Law to new levels of excellence and prominence and help to shape the future of legal education. Building on the momentum of a transformative decade, the Dean will raise the College’s national profile, recruit the highest caliber of students, faculty, and staff to the College, set high standards for creative legal scholarship and clinical practice, promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, commit to student success, and build community connections. This position offers the opportunity to make an extraordinary impact not only on a rapidly changing state, but on the quality and nature of legal education nationally.

 

Jacksonville Law Launches with Nick Allard as Dean, 14 1L's

That was quick.  Jacksonville University's new law school has opened its doors.  

Michael Whiteman Named Interim Dean of Cincinnati Law

Michael Whiteman, Associate Dean of Library Services & Director of the Law Library at Cincinnati Law, has been named interim dean of the law school stepping in for Verna Williams, who will become CEO of Equal Justice Works. Whiteman joined the Cincinnati Law faculty in 2019 and holds a JD from University of Louisville School of Law. 

 

Indiana Bloomington Law Seeks Dean

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Indiana University Bloomington invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the Maurer School of Law.

Founded in 1842, the Maurer School of Law is among the top public law schools in the nation. The Maurer School of Law has approximately 600 JD students and 50 international students, 53 full-time faculty members, four robust research centers, numerous clinical and externship opportunities, and partnerships with top-ranked schools on the Bloomington campus and around the world. The school prepares its students to become ethical lawyers and leaders, and has an engaged and supportive alumni base throughout the world.

The Dean serves as the chief academic and administrative officer for the Maurer School of Law, and reports to the Provost and Executive Vice President. Applicants for Dean of the Maurer School of Law should possess distinguished records of scholarship, teaching, professional experience, and public service, and be appropriate for tenure as a full professor at the law school. Applicants should also possess the strong administrative, managerial, development, and communication skills necessary for leading a law school on the campus of a highly interdisciplinary public research university. In addition, the Dean will be a senior leader at the university and will join a collegial and collaborative group of decanal colleagues who oversee the 17 other schools on campus. The expected announcement date for the position is October 1, 2022. The starting date is negotiable.

The University’s dedication to excellence is complemented by its commitment to building a culturally diverse academic community. Individuals from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.

Applications received by July 22, 2022, will be given full consideration. However, the search will remain open until a suitable candidate is found. Further information about the search, including the full position description can be found at: https://provost.indiana.edu/about/exec- searches/maurer-dean.html

To apply, create an applicant account, including CV and letter of interest at: https://indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/13158

Questions about the search, feedback, or nominations may be emailed to Brandi Host, Project Manager, Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President at: searchbl@indiana.edu

Indiana University is an equal employment and affirmative action employer and a provider of ADA services. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment based on individual qualifications. Indiana University prohibits discrimination based on age, ethnicity, color, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status.

Tamara Lawson Named Dean of University of Washington School of Law

University of Washington School of Law has announced that Tamara Lawson will be the new dean of its law school.   She is currently dean and professor of law at St. Thomas University School of Law in Florida.  Lawson, who holds a JD from University of San Francisco Law and an LLM from Georgetown, will take over on August 16th.

Twinette Johnson Named Acting Dean of UDC Law

The University of the District of Columbia has announced that Associate Dean Twinette Johnson will be the law school's acting dean effective August 1.  She replaces Renée Hutchins who is departing to lead Maryland Law.  Johnson, who joined UDC in 2017, holds a JD from Tulane and a Ph.D from Saint Louis University.

Okezie Chukwumerije Named Interim Dean of Texas Southern Law

Texas Southern University announced last week that it has replaced Dean Joan Bullock with a new interim dean, Okezie Chukwumerije.  Bullock has been dean since 2019.  Chukwumerije, an associate dean who joined the faculty in 2003,  holds an LLB from the University of Benin, LLM from the University of British Columbia, and a D. Jur. from Osgoode Hall. The best news link is behind a paywall from the Houston Chronicle, but this apparent bot conversion of that article is a more engaging read anyway.

Montana Law Names Elaine Gagliardi Interim Dean

The University of Montana law school dean search yielded three finalists, but did not produce a dean.  At least one candidate apparently declined an offer.  After being led by a three person team for the last few months, the university announced that beginning July 1, Professor Elaine Gagliardi will serve as interim dean. Gagliardi holds a JD from Montana and an LLM in Tax from NYU.

John Anderson Named interim Dean of Mississippi College Law

The Mississippi College School of Law has announced that John Anderson will be its interim dean.  Anderson replaces Dean Patricia Bennett who is stepping down on July 1.  Anderson, who holds a JD from the University of Virginia, has been on the MC Law faculty since 2010.

Mike Cahill Stepping Down as Brooklyn Law Dean

Michael Cahill has announced that he will step down as dean of Brooklyn Law School at the end of the 2022-23 school year.  Cahill became dean in 2019.  He will rejoin the faculty.

Russell Korobkin Named Interim Dean of UCLA Law

UCLA Law has announced that Professor Russell Korobkin is taking over as interim dean of the law school effective today.  He replaces Jennifer Mnookin who is heading off to Madison, Wisconsin later this summer.  Korobkin has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 2001 and holds a JD from Stanford.  

Alena Allen to Serve as Deputy Director of AALS

University of Arkansas School of Law interim dean Alena Allen has accepted the position of  Deputy Director of the American Association of Law Schools effective August 1.  She will remain a tenured professor on the faculty and will conclude her role as interim dean June 30.  

Jason Nance Named Dean of SMU Law

Southern Methodist University  has announced that Jason Nance will be the new dean of its law school.   He is currently an associate dean and law faculty member at the University of Florida. Nance, who holds a JD from Penn, will take over in August.

 

 

Tom Mayo Named Interim Dean of SMU Law

Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Law Tom Mayo has been named interim dean of SMU Law beginning on July 1, stepping in for Jennifer Collins who will be come President of Rhodes College.  Mayo joined SMU in 1984 and holds a JD from Syracuse.