I am thrilled to have joined the GW community as the 18th dean of The George Washington University Law School! I believe this is a truly exciting moment of transformative opportunity, and I am very pleased to to work with you all to build the future of this great institution.

A quick tour around our website will give you a sense of what an incredibly vibrant school this is. Indeed, even on the web it is impossible to capture just how much goes on here during the course of a year! Each term, we host more than 100 events, from major international conferences on cutting edge topics of public policy to lunches and workshops with top scholars and jurists from around the world. And we frequently welcome many prominent speakers, guest lecturers, and competition judges, including sitting Supreme Court justices.

Meanwhile, our students donate thousands of hours pursuing practical legal training in clinics, externships, and pro bono activities, volunteering at government agencies and public interest organizations around the city. Our extremely popular LL.M. programs in Business and Finance Law, Environmental Law, Government Procurement Law, Intellectual Property Law, International and Comparative Law, Litigation and Dispute Resolution, and National Security and U.S. Foreign Relations Law offer advanced training to lawyers from all over the United States and, in the 2010–11 academic year, from 71 countries as well.

Our faculty is quoted on a daily basis and literally not a week goes by without professors testifying on Capitol Hill or serving as consultants to governments. All this in addition to the astonishing scholarly output of our school, as our faculty members push the boundaries of legal and public policy research, contributing expertise and wisdom across a wide range of fields.

By integrating our public policy engagement with government and think tanks, our outside placement program, and our extraordinary group of adjunct faculty members, and by further connecting legal education to law and policy practice, we are creating pathways for students that no law school in the country can match.

The result is a legal education that truly positions students to change the world. From day one they participate in law not just as it exists in textbooks, but as it operates in the real world, and not just anywhere, but in the most vibrant city for law and policy on earth.

During the coming months, I will be engaging with students and faculty in our classrooms and hallways, and meeting with our alumni, friends, and prospective students across the country and around the world. I really want your opinions—both large and small—of how we can improve. Send me e-mails, call me, talk to me. This is no time to be complacent. We all know that this is an important moment for thinking about the future of law practice and legal education, and GW should be at the forefront of innovation in navigating this brave new world.

In addition, there are many opportunities to transform the day-to-day life of the law school to make it not only dynamic and engaged, but personalized and nurturing as well. We can provide even stronger connections to practice and even more proactive one-on-one counseling so that our students have a leg up in their job searches from day one. We can expand upon our existing strength in international law to create a truly global law program, with partnerships abroad, international student exchanges and externship opportunities, and leading scholars and jurists from around the world in residence in DC. We can foster innovative, action-oriented scholarship that seeks solutions to the world’s great challenges. We can make sure financial aid remains a priority, ensuring that a top quality legal education remains affordable to all. And we can continue to build a world-class facility, befitting a school of our international scope, scale, and importance.

All this lies ahead of us. Please join me as we invent the future of this law school together.

Paul Schiff Berman
Dean and Robert Kramer Research Professor of Law