© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(October 22) – Julie Forrester has kept very busy since June, when her job as the interim dean of the SMU Dedman School of Law began. But while she says this transition as the law school’s leader has been fulfilling, it is not one that will be permanent.
“I have decided not to put my name in for the long-term position as dean,” said Forrester, who has taught real estate law at SMU Dedman for 23 years. “Although I have found this job rewarding, I believe that I would miss teaching, and I don’t want to fall behind in my scholarship.”
Thus, the uncertainty of who will be the school’s next permanent law dean lingers.
SMU Provost Paul Ludden appointed Forrester as interim dean on February 15 of this year – the same day he announced the official 18-member search committee that he formed to find the law school’s next permanent dean.
The interim dean appointment and establishment of the search committee resulted after Ludden and SMU President R. Gerald Turner informed long-serving law dean John Attanasio in December 2012 that his contract would not be renewed at the end of the school year.
SMU Cox School of Business Dean Albert W. Niemi chairs a search committee that includes DFI Management CEO Robert H. Dedman, Jr., AT&T General Counsel Wayne Watts, former Texas Supreme Court Justice Deborah Hankinson, Akin Gump partner Alan Feld and Haynes and Boone founder Mike Boone, who also serves as chair-elect of the SMU Board of Trustees.
In addition to the 18 members, the school hired the executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates to assist in the national search for the new SMU Law dean.
Forrester, who has no involvement with the search committee, said she does not know of any updates on the committee’s progress in finding the next dean.
Attanasio, who still has tenure and a chaired professorship at SMU Dedman, is currently on his sabbatical and serving as a distinguished visiting fellow at his alma mater, New York University School of Law.
Forrester’s busy interim deanship is currently giving her a taste of what it’s like to go at least a full school year without teaching – which is why she’ll be glad to return to her original role as professor once SMU Dedman locks down its next leader.
“I’ve enjoyed the job, but I also love my old job,” said Forrester, noting that she loves being a professor and teaching talented, engaged, really nice students.
“I miss my students,” she said.
The priorities of her deanship, Forrester said, revolve around four objectives of the law school: job placement of graduating students, raising support for scholarships and faculty positions, staying on top of admissions and gathering information on the best practices in legal education for ideas of change.
“Because I’m an interim dean, we aren’t going to make big curricular changes this year, but it’s a good year to get information and start thinking about whether we can make any changes,” Forrester said.
Forrester thinks the biggest challenge legal education currently faces is the ability to recognize the evolving market of legal services and prepare students to face the changing reality of the legal market. For students, Forrester said the biggest challenge, subsequently, is entering this changing job market – one that maybe looked different when starting out as a first-year law student.
Some examples of the market changes she noted include the declining number of jobs available at big law firms as well as the idea that graduates don’t always have to practice law to use their law degrees in a constructive way. Alternatives to a job at a law firm could be one in the business or public service sectors, she said.
A rewarding result of serving as the law school’s interim dean is “seeing a bigger picture of the university” by recognizing opportunities to collaborate with other disciplines at SMU, Forrester said.
Forrester said she has taken an interest in SMU’s new multidisciplinary cyber security initiative, which is led by former National Security Agency research director Frederick R. Chang, who serves as the new Bobby B. Lyle Endowed Centennial Distinguished Chair in Cyber Security in SMU’s engineering school.
The initiative aims to tackle the most pressing cyber challenges that face individuals, businesses and government today – challenges that lawyers are most certainly not immune to.
Part of the initiative’s objective includes applying an interdisciplinary approach to challenging problems by incorporating elements from disciplines not traditionally associated with cyber security. This could include law, business and the social sciences.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for the law,” Forrester said. “It’s absolutely important for us to collaborate with other departments in the university.”
© 2013 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.