© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
After Raymond T. Nimmer announced last month that he was stepping down as the dean of the University of Houston Law Center, he took a trip to India. While he was halfway across the world, something monumental happened: the UH Law Center jumped nine places in the U.S. News & World Report rankings to No. 48.
Celebrating the news in the bar of his hotel with a glass of wine, Nimmer smiled to himself as he thought about how far the school had come since his deanship started seven years ago, when the school – as he described it – was in “turmoil.”
His job as dean began after his predecessor Nancy Rapoport resigned with a two-week’s notice in 2006, leaving the school unsure of what would happen next. At the time, the school had dropped in rankings to No. 70. Students were unhappy with how they were being treated. The faculty was considered a contentious group.
Today, Nimmer says, the UH Law Center is “in a good place,” which is why – besides health reasons – he believed his time was up as the leader of the school.
“I don’t believe in long-term deanships,” he said. “After some number of years, you’re just there because you like the title. That’s not me. I’m also a lawyer and an academic; I’m not a dean.”
Along with an improved ranking, the school now has a tightly knit faculty, improved curriculum, triple the amount of its scholarship funding, stronger alumni involvement, more tenured faculty, and a reduced JD class size (for a smaller student to faculty ratio).
Nimmer said that the interim dean Richard Alderman, a long-time colleague and friend, will most likely not be leading the UH Law Center next year because he is considering moving out-of-state. Although he has nobody in mind, Nimmer hopes the next dean will have a national presence and the ability to continue moving the Law Center forward.
As far as the rest of the law deans in Texas go, Nimmer believes the key to success is to always strive for excellence, regardless of what goals need to be achieved to reach it.
“It’s a hell of a hard job,” he said. “One has to actually run the place, and to run the place you need to be a strong academic with good administrative skills.”
Law deans’ jobs won’t become any easier in the near future. With the arrival of Texas A&M University’s and the University of North Texas’ new law schools, Nimmer said the state’s legal market will become more competitive – especially in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He believes that the two schools won’t necessarily generate more applications to law schools in Texas, but rather take away applicants from some other schools.
“I don’t see how the DFW area will easily adjust,” Nimmer said. “A&M has a great reputation and I think SMU is going to be the school that’s going to have to struggle to stay where it is as a top school in the country with two state schools popping up.”
During his one-year sabbatical, Nimmer looks forward to researching, reading, painting, spending more time writing down his thoughts and possibly traveling to Croatia to do all of these hobbies. After his sabbatical, he plans to return to the UH Law Center to teach intellectual property matters.
“I’m retiring to another job – I’m still a law professor, which is one of the most interesting and fun jobs in the world,” he said.
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