he Case Western Reserve University School of Law, which admitted its first class of students in 1892, has many virtues. Above all else, however, it is a wonderful place to study law. The faculty is world-class, with outstanding teachers and nationally and internationally renowned scholars who are doing influential and creative work in numerous fields. The students are a very bright and diverse group, chosen from a sizable and highly competitive applicant pool. In keeping with the pattern in recent years, seventy percent of the first-year students come from outside Ohio. The law school also has the great advantage of being part of a first-rate university. Interdisciplinary studies are increasingly important to a good legal education, and Case Western Reserve University's many strong schools and departments make it possible for such studies to flourish.
One of the signature features of the law school is its leadership in creating centers of excellence: the Center for Professional Ethics; the Center for Law, Technology, and the Arts; the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center (which includes as a key component the Institute for Global Security Law and Policy); the Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center; the Law-Medicine Center; the Center for Business Law and Regulation; the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict and Dispute Resolution; and the Center for Social Justice. The centers range in age from less than one year (the Center for Social Justice) to more than fifty (the Law-Medicine Center, which is also the first health law center in the United States). With their various conferences, speakers, and visiting scholars, the centers are hotbeds of activity. Not surprisingly, they have achieved widespread recognition and acclaim for their interdisciplinary and global approaches to issues.
Thus far as Dean, my major initiative has been the creation of the Center for Social Justice. A proud part of the law school's legacy is the welcoming atmosphere that it provided for the relatively sizable number of African Americans who attended the law school in the years before desegregation. Many of those African American graduates went on to illustrious careers, including legendary civil rights attorneys Fred Gray, whose clients have included Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, and C.B. King, for whom a federal courthouse in Georgia is named. While looking back to honor these graduates and commemorate the law school's historic commitment to racial equality, the proposed center also looks ahead to promoting social justice for the various groups that experience discriminatory treatment today. It does this in a variety of ways, ranging from mounting conferences and speaker programs, to helping fund the law school's loan repayment assistance program, to providing stipends to students doing public interest work over the summer, to getting law students involved in pipeline projects for students in the Cleveland schools. The center seeks to inspire more students to pursue public interest work full-time after graduation and to encourage those who accept employment in law firms and elsewhere in the private sector to take on some social justice litigation pro bono.
Partly as a result of the centers, which among other things seek to ensure strong and cutting-edge course coverage in the areas on which the centers focus, the law school has a rich and varied curriculum. A key ingredient of the curriculum is the CaseArc skills training program, which became part of the curriculum in the fall semester of 2003. The CaseArc program is distinctive - and I believe unique - in making skills training a required four-semester sequence. The training that students receive not only makes them better lawyers but also makes them more marketable to law firms, which are acutely aware of the importance of high-quality, broad-based skills training to effective lawyering.
Since becoming Dean in July 2006, I have added a number of new members to, and enhanced the role of, the law school's Visiting Committee - a distinguished group of alumni and others who have gone on to a wide variety of highly successful careers. Among its more than forty members are federal appellate and district court judges, present and former managing partners of various major law firms, general counsels to corporations, the president of the ACLU, prominent business executives, a college president, and the recent interim president of Case Western Reserve University. With their everyday contact with the realities of legal and business practice, the Visiting Committee's members are a great resource, offering invaluable perspectives on the legal education provided by the school. I have restructured the operation of the Visiting Committee in several ways that I believe have significantly expanded its members' opportunities to share important insights about the school. A list of the members of the Visiting Committee
can be viewed here.
If you have not yet visited the campus, I urge you to do so. It is a really lovely campus, and the law school building itself is a bright, inspiring, and user-friendly place to study law. The building is situated in the heart of "University Circle," which is home to Cleveland's world-famous symphony and art museum and other cultural treasures. Located on the edge of the city, the campus borders on vibrant and attractive residential neighborhoods, but is also only a few miles from downtown Cleveland and its rich menu of professional sports, theatre, music, and other activities. If you need any further convincing that the law school's location is a very definite plus, see Lisa Chamberlain, "
A Resurgence in Cleveland," N.Y. Times, Nov. 8, 2006.
In closing, I should mention one reason why I am particularly optimistic about the future of the law school: Barbara R. Snyder's leadership as President of Case Western Reserve University. A member of the Case Western Reserve law faculty from 1983-88 and a member of that faculty once again since becoming university President in July 2007, President Snyder has already proven the wisdom of the search committee that selected her as President after a stellar career as a law professor and Provost at Ohio State.
I am honored to be Dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. The law school has a great past, and it is poised to have an even greater future.
Sincerely,
Gary J. Simson
Dean and Joseph C. Hostetler-Baker & Hostetler Professor of Law
