a message from the dean
A New Look for GW Law Dear friends of GW LAW,
Our students have traveled the nation, winning competitions and doing valuable pro bono legal work. Our faculty continues to produce extraordinarily influential legal scholarship, while also assisting the U.S. government and international organizations in their important missions.
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GW Law | winter 2014
We are very pleased to present you with the first issue of our newly redesigned GW Law magazine. You will see that we have updated the graphic style, changed the formatting to make the content easier to read, and added new sections to provide you with more in-depth coverage of topics of great interest to the Law School community. Our Strategic Communications team has truly devoted themselves to producing this splendid issue, which we believe is the largest in the entire history of this publication. While much is new, one thing remains the same: the magazine still serves first and foremost to connect you with GW Law. Your interest and support are highly valuable to us. We are delighted to share with you what GW Law students, alumni, faculty, and staff are doing and how they are affecting the world around them. In May 2013, the GW Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new strategic plan to keep the university moving forward. Called “Vision 2021,” the strategic plan emphasizes four themes: innovation through cross-disciplinary collaboration, globalization, governance and policy, and citizenship and leadership. You will be hearing much about this plan as the university approaches the two hundredth anniversary of its founding in 1821. In this issue of the magazine, we have focused on two ways in which the Law School is furthering the goals of the strategic plan. The story “Strategic Collaboration” highlights some of GW Law’s many interactions with other schools within the university. As you will see, our students and faculty are very fortunate to have such willing and able partners all across the GW campus. Globalization is the focus of the article “20th & H: Crossroads of the World.” Each fall, students from more than a quarter of the nations on earth make their way to study at the Law School. Once here, they are joined throughout the year by visiting foreign judges, government officials, and
scholars. Our location in Washington, the legal capital of the world, and our openness to new ideas and different perspectives, draws these guests to the law school and enriches everyone’s experience. You will see in these pages reports of many forms of success. Our students have traveled the nation, winning competitions and doing valuable pro bono legal work. Our faculty continues to produce extraordinarily influential legal scholarship, while also assisting the U.S. government and international organizations in their important missions. And no account of the success of GW Law would be complete without news from our loyal alumni. This issue provides a view of the wide range of their impressive activities. GW Law is going through important transitions. This fall, we have opened two new academic buildings, hired new faculty members, and begun the search for the next dean. We hope you will come to visit us, either at Reunion Weekend this June or Alumni Weekend next fall, to see for yourself how much we have grown while remaining true to our constant mission of providing a superb legal education for all of our students. Sincerely,
Gregory E. Maggs Interim Dean and Professor of Law