PHOTO: DAVID LEIFER

Summer 2006 | Dean's Message

Full Steam Ahead

EVERY SEVEN YEARS, accredited law schools are inspected by the American Bar Association and the Association of American Law Schools. As part of this normal cycle, our ABA/AALS accreditation team came (and went) this past April.

It is remarkable what one can discover in the course of preparation for a visit like this.

First, we learned more about ourselves. One example: we once again realized the impressive scholarly productivity of our relatively small faculty. Together, members of the faculty had published 160 articles, book chapters and monographs in the past three years; 12 books have just come out or are close to completion. The books that have most recently rolled off the presses are Mike Meltsner's The Making of a Civil Rights Lawyer; Steve Subrin and Margaret Woo's Litigating in America; David Hall's The Spiritual Revitalization of the Legal Profession; and Lucy Williams' edited volume, International Poverty Law: An Emerging Discourse.

While our faculty are prolific writers and engaged teachers, they also find the time to do pro bono legal work and to assume leadership positions in numerous groups— from participating as national board members of organizations like the Legal Services Corporation, Legal Action Center, Welfare Law Center and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, to chairing major sections of the AALS, acting as reporters for ABA or judicial projects, volunteering with many Massachusetts-based nonprofit organizations, and working on global and international issues with organizations like Health Global Access, South Africa Partners and the Council for Clinical Legal Education in China. This remarkable breadth of faculty achievement and engagement is nothing short of astonishing.

Second, we seized the opportunity presented by the ABA inspection to engage in a careful self-appraisal as part of the required "self study" that law schools must prepare for these visits. This process both provided the underpinnings for our ongoing strategic planning and encouraged us to make the time for some changes. One example, discussed elsewhere in this issue of our magazine, is the significant overhaul of our first-year Legal Practice and Law, Culture and Difference programs. The new, combined program of Legal Skills in Social Context is designed to sharpen the teaching of research and writing skills in the first year while maintaining our focus on social context and community projects.

At their exit meeting with me—and again with the provost and the president of Northeastern—the seven member ABA/AALS team voiced their enthusiasm for what they had discovered about our law school: the engaged faculty and students, the shared sense of mission, the willingness to innovate and the extraordinary spirit shared by faculty, students and staff.

The ABA team took their newly minted impressions of NUSL back to their home institutions, including the law schools at Iowa, Duke, Yale, Vanderbilt and the University of Oklahoma. Of course, the team discovered what we all already know: this is indeed a vibrant and unique law school. Needless to say, we are strengthened by our remarkable graduates, some of whom are profiled in this magazine, and by the talented students who renew our community each year. As summer passes toward fall, we are planning and eagerly anticipating the arrival of the class of 2009, which is shaping up to be as diverse and talented as any class we have