First Ever Dean's Blog

After years of cursing blogs as the downfall of our civilization, I have decided to join the ranks of bloggers and create the Dean's Blog. I plan on posting a blog once a week. The blog will focus on our alumni and happenings here at the law school. I will also use the blog, from time to time, to comment on issues in legal education. In addition, I will use the blog to report the individual successes of alums. I hope that you, our alumni, will let me know about your successes so I can include them.

I spent the latter part of this past week at the Alabama State Bar meeting. Earlier in the summer, I met with alumni at the Tennessee and Florida Bars and Jeff Price and Anne Marovich from our Career Services Office attended the Georgia Bar Meeting. The bar trips have been sandwiched around alumni visits in Dafuskie Island, South Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville and Lexingon, Kentucky. For me, one of the best parts of the Dean's job is getting to travel the country meeting with alumni. Our alumni are very successful and making a real difference in their communities. From August 6 through August 8th, I will be in New York attending the board meeting of the American Judicature Society, a nationally known law reform organization. AJS was kind enough to invite me to join their board. I will also be meeting with alumni in the New York area.

The meeting of the Alabama Bar was special for all of us in the Class of 1974 because Mark White '74 was sworn in as president of the bar. Mark has been active in state and and national bar efforts and has been nationally recognized for his work on judicial selection and independence. It was also special because Tom Methvin '88 was sworn in as president elect. Tom will ascend to the office of the president at the meeting in July of 2009. Both Mark and Tom told the audience that their terms as president will emphasize legal services for the poor. Their emphasis fits perfectly with a similar emphasis here at the law school. We are encouraging our students to be involved in getting the poor adequate access to the justice system. We had a record number of applications for our summer public interest fellowships. In addition, one of our students, Freddie Rubio, won the Alabama State Law Student Pro Bono Award for his work on behalf of the poor.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier emails to you, Becky Clapp has retired after 3 decades of dedicated service to the law school. The new Director of the Law Library , Greg Laughlin, joined us on July 1. Greg brings significant experience to his new position. Most recently, he was the Director of the Law Library at the University of Memphis School of Law. Gregg is also an Associate Professor of Law and will teach as well as administer the law library.

Today, I head to our summer program in Cambridge, England. (it is tough duty but somebody has to do it). Next week's blog will focus on the Cambridge visit and our foreign programs.