AALS Section on Leadership

Greetings, I hope your fall semester continues to go well—with Thanksgiving break not too far off.  I am pleased to introduce the newest edition of our Section on Leadership newsletter and to provide a short update on the Section on Leadership and our upcoming activities, most notably the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2023.

After years of dealing with the public health crisis, this will be our first in-person meeting in three years.  I hope that many of you will make an extra effort to join us in San Diego for what will surely be a stimulating meeting and a joyous reunion. 

While we are still a relatively new Section (our inaugural section program was held in New Orleans in 2019) by AALS standards, we continue to grow and attract new members interested in advancing leadership development and leadership studies in law.  This year, as a Section, we are focused on rebuilding our community and our maintaining our positive momentum.   This year we are hosting our own session on “How Teaching Leadership Can Make a Difference” (Saturday, January 7 from 8:30-10:10 am) and co-sponsoring a session on “Incorporating Access to Justice & Pro-Bono Across the Law School Curriculum” (Thursday, January 5 from 3:00-4:40 pm).

It has been a great honor to serve as a chair of the Section and work alongside a terrific Executive Committee. 

Thank you all for your continued efforts and engagement to grow and expand the leadership field.  Our work continues to be both important and needed.  I look forward to seeing you in San Diego.

All the best,

 – Garry

Saturday, January 7, 2023 • 8:30 AM

The Section on Leadership will conduct its annual meeting and program at 8:30 a.m. to 10:10 a.m. on January 7, 2023, in San Diego, California at the AALS Annual Meeting.

Program Description:

This year’s program is “How Teaching Leadership Can Make a Difference” and will feature outstanding national leadership experts discussing how teaching leadership skills and abilities can lead to significant changes in the legal profession, governance of institutions, and others.    Those speakers are:

Dean Erwin Chermerinsky (UC Berkeley Law), Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Boston University Law), Professor Hilary Sale, (Georgetown Law), Dean Garry Jenkins (Minnesota Law), and Farayi Chipungu (Harvard Kennedy School of Government).  Dean April Barton (Duquesne) will serve as moderator of the panel.  All members of the Section on Leadership are encouraged to register for the 2023 Annual Meeting and make plans to attend the Section program and the Section’s Annual Business Meeting.  For more information, please contact Dean Garry Jenkins or Dean April Barton

WHAT ARE YOU WRITING?

Kathy Vinson:

I recently wrote a short article, The Great Resignation or the Great Joy in Higher Education:  Lessons from the Pandemic that discusses how leaders in higher education can help their faculty rediscover their joy at work and prevent faculty burnout, the great resignation, etc.:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4238036

Kathleen Elliott Vinson
Professor of Legal Writing
Director of Legal Writing, Research, and Written Advocacy
Suffolk University Law School

Michael Collatrella:

Leading Law Schools: Relationships, Influence, and Negotiation 

91 University of Cincinnati Law Review No. ___ 2022

This article explores how quality relationships with one’s constituents, especially faculty, lie at the heart of successful law school leadership. Achieving meaningful institutional goals is a group endeavor, and a law school leader must have the skills and abilities to focus faculty energies and enthusiasms to a unified vison. To marshal those energies and inspire those enthusiasms, a leader must master the triumvirate leadership skills of (1) relationship building, (2) influential power, and (3) negotiation with faculty. If one is to be a successful leader in law school environments, formal or informal, one must accept the premise that the power to lead is one that law school faculty grants a person. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4086895 

Michael T. Colatrella Jr.
Professor of Law
University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law 

Brian Gallini:

Pandemic Leadership

University of Toledo Law Review, Vol. 52, 2021

This piece tells the story of my cross-country move to take on a first law school deanship amid a global pandemic. There is no shortage of literature about leadership outside the realm of academia. Indeed, there are a number of engaging books about leadership philosophies, styles, and guidance. But those materials are not tailored specifically to leadership roles within legal academia. Moreover, there is little scholarly literature advising deans on how to lead a law school. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there exists even less literature advising deans on how to lead a law school during a global pandemic.

My hope for this piece is to expand the body of scholarship advising deans on how to lead a law school. This Article offers my early thoughts—first-year pandemic thoughts, to be exact—about the ways law school administrations can cultivate and maintain a strong culture focused on producing passionate and skilled lawyers. Part I tells the story of my transition from the University of Arkansas to Willamette University College of Law. Part II puts you firmly in the saddle of an administration tasked with learning to run a law school from scratch. Part III reflects on lessons learned from doing so.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3890108

Brian Gallini
Dean & Professor of Law
Willamette University College of Law

Leah Teague:

Leadership is the answer for the changes to ABA Standards 303 and 508

Part 1: https://traininglawyersasleaders.org/2022/03/10/amendments-to-aba-standards-support-the-objectives-of-leadership-development-programming-part-1/

Part 2: https://traininglawyersasleaders.org/2022/03/15/amendments-to-aba-standards-support-the-objectives-of-leadership-development-programming-part-2/ Part 3: https://traininglawyersasleaders.org/2022/03/17/amendments-to-aba-standards-support-the-objectives-of-leadership-development-programming-part-3/

Leah Teague
Professor of Law
Baylor University School of Law

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Kathy Vinson:

I’m reading the following 2 books:

Unraveling Faculty Burnout and 
Global Lawyering

Brian Gallini:

Frances Frei & Anne Morriss, Unleashed. 

Stephen Rispoli:

Grant by Ron Chernow

“In Leading in Law, Barry Posner and Donald Polden make a persuasive case for why leadership studies should be included in the modern law school curriculum.  Well-organized and accessible, this book introduces law students to leadership theory and offers them practical ways to develop an important professional skill.  Law faculty will find it an effective pedagogical tool; one which prompts students to think more deeply about their own professional identity as members of the legal profession.” 

 Paula A. Monopoli, Sol & Carlyn Hubert Professor of Law, University of Maryland Carey School of Law

“This book is fantastic. It’s comprehensive, well-written, and easy to read. Great use of research findings and examples. It’s a winner!”

Doug Blaze, Dean and Art Stoinitz & Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tennessee College of Law

“This is an outstanding textbook by two leading scholars in the field for a law school leadership course. The greatest strength is the excellent reflection questions at the end of each chapter.”

Neil W. Hamilton, Holloran Professor of Law and Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions