L AW CO U N CI L E M ER ITI Peter Baumgaertner ’83, ’86L (New York City) J. I. Vance Berry Jr. ’79L (Jacksonville, Fla.) Walter J. Borda ’67, ’71L (Novi, Mich.) Matthew J. Calvert ’75, ’79L (Atlanta) Albert V. Carr Jr. ’71L (Lexington) Michael Cohen ’90L (Washington) Thomas E. Evans ’91L (Bentonville, Ariz.) Thomas J. Gearen ’82L (Kalamazoo, Ill.) Shawn George ’81L (Charleston, W.Va.) Diana L. Grimes ’07L (Des Moines, Iowa) Thomas B. Henson ’80L (Charlotte, N.C.) The Hon. Mary Miller Johnston ’84L (Wilmington, Del.) Nicholas J. Kaiser ’83L (New York City) Chong J. Kim ’92L (Atlanta) A. Carter Magee Jr. ’79L (Roanoke) The Hon. Everett A. Martin Jr. ’74, ’77L (Norfolk, Va.) Andrew J. Olmen ’96, ’01L (Arlington, Va.) Richard Smith ’98L (Washington) W. Hildebrandt Surgner, Jr. ’87, ’94L (Richmond) Andrea K. Wahlquist ’95L (New York City)
Write By Mail:
Now!
Elizabeth Outland Branner Director of Law School Advancement Sydney Lewis Hall Washington and Lee University School of Law Lexington, VA 24450
By E-Mail:
brannere@wlu.edu
By Phone:
(540) 458-8191 All letters should be signed and include the author’s name, address and daytime phone number. Letters selected for publication may be edited for length, content and style. Signed articles reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of the editors or the University.
Challenging Times
O
Only a few years ago, to have a law dean say, “This is an exciting and challenging time in legal education,” would have been an unsurprising and overstated opening for a report to alumni. Not anymore. This thought is expressed with increasing frequency, and more importantly, accuracy, around the country. In my 35 years in legal education, there has never been a time when more attention and energy has been focused on the state of legal education and its relationship to the profession and society. This is generally a positive development. But predictably, for some law schools, it brings new and often unflattering media attention uncomfortably close to home. Among some of the more prominent issues receiving increased attention are the cost and financing of legal education, the impact of the economic downturn on opportunities for employment in the profession, and changes in the profession itself. These issues are important ones for us at W&L. But they are not ones we shy away from, and, in fact, they have given us the opportunity to further distinguish our approach to legal education, particularly in the way we interact with our students and prospective students. An unavoidable truth is that the cost of legal education is high. While we commit substantial resources to student financial aid and strive to provide even more, many of our students still finance a significant part of their educational costs through borrowing. These students particularly, but Mark Grunewald, Interim Dean as a practical matter all students, rightly want to understand more about the value proposition of obtaining a law degree. Our approach to this question, as you would expect of us, has been open and honest. This year we made available a 17-page document summarizing, in far greater detail than we are required to under ABA standards, our graduates’ employment experience over the past five years. At a time when many law schools were being criticized for failure to make meaningful disclosures along these lines, we received explicit and positive media attention for our action. We have continued to develop and expand this information to ensure that it reflects the current employment conditions that our students face. Our efforts, of course, are not limited to providing students information about market conditions. The heart of our work to assist students in obtaining employment occurs through our dedicated Career Services staff and among the faculty. Our goal is to not only identify and bring to our students’ attention specific employment opportunities, but also, through extensive programming and individual counseling, to help students better understand their interests and the range and variety of work available in the profession. None of what we do, however, is more important than what we deliver in the educational program itself and in the learning community that is the hallmark of W&L Law. Our third-year curriculum continues to be recognized as one of the boldest and most innovative reforms in legal education, and the quality and distinctiveness of our overall three-year program attracts growing attention. Our students develop professional relationships with their teachers and peers that are deep and long lasting and that are grounded in values that transcend the formalities of professional education. Certainly, the faculty and staff here take great pride in being part of the development of W&L lawyers in a time when legal education is under the spotlight, but we understand that nothing we do for our students would be possible without the loyalty of our alumni. Whether it is financial support to help reduce student debt burden or one-on-one advice and assistance to a student, our alumni make it work and are always included in our boast.
Summer
Dean’s Message
L AW CO U N CI L Eric A. Anderson ’82L (New York City) Blas P. Arroyo ’81L (Charlotte, N.C.) Stacy D. Blank ’88L (Tampa, Fla.) J. Alexander Boone ’95L (Roanoke) Katherine Tritschler Boone ’06L (Atlanta) Benjamin C. Brown ’94, ’03L (Washington) John A. Cocklereece Jr. ’76, ’79L (Winston-Salem, N.C.) David K. Friedfeld ’83L (Hauppauge, N.Y.) Betsy Callicott Goodell ’80L (Bronxville, N.Y.) Rakesh Gopalan ’06L (Charlotte, N.C.) Fred K. Granade ’75L (Bay Minette, Ala.) M. Peebles Harrison ’92L (Nags Head, N.C.) Christina E. Hassan ’98L (Washington) Nathan V. Hendricks ’66, ’69L (Atlanta) A. John Huss ’65L (St. Paul, Minn.) Wyndall Ivey ’99L (Birmingham, Ala.) Bruce H. Jackson ’65, ’68L (San Francisco) W. Henry Jernigan Jr. ’72, ’75L (Charleston, W.Va.) Lauren Troxclair Lebioda ’06L (New York City) Susan Appel McMillan ’89L (Boise, Idaho) Thomas L. Sansonetti ’76L (Denver) Lesley Brown Schless ’80L (Greenwich, Conn.) James S. Seevers ’97L (Richmond) William M. Toles ’92, ’95L (Dallas)
2011 l aw.wlu.e du
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