University of Oregon School of Law - Message From The Dean

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message from the dean

Dear Friend,

What's special about Oregon now? The University of Oregon School of Law has equipped generations of lawyers with the best tools to succeed in a quickly changing world.

Oregon students learn. The University of Oregon School of Law is part of a major research university, and offers a serious, comprehensive legal education. Our faculty has "been there" - many of them practiced with the country's major law firms, corporations, and government agencies and many are known nationally for cutting edge legal scholarship. All of them are great teachers and fine scholars. For example,

Professor Mary Christina Wood, whose work on climate change issues is internationally renowned, delivered the keynote address at the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation's October 19, 2007 symposium, "Combating Climate Change on the Regional Level: West Coast Policy and Litigation." Professor Wood is nationally known for her scholarship on the federal trust obligation towards native nations and her work on treaty fishing rights and endangered species. She is a frequent speaker on issues relating to protection of native resources and has helped government agencies formulate policies to carry out their trust obligations. She is a co-author of a forthcoming textbook in natural resources law and is engaged in other scholarship exploring the use of private property mechanisms such as conservation easements to achieve landscape protection.

Leslie Harris, the Dorothy Kliks Fones Professor of Law, literally "wrote the book" on family law and children's issues. Her casebooks are used by faculty at Harvard, Cornell, and other leading law schools. With a gift from donor Duncan Campbell, she founded the Oregon Child Advocacy Project, which pursues legal change to protect children. Each year, two to three Oregon students are chosen to be Campbell Child Advocacy Fellows. The Campbell Fellows work on legislative and judicial law reform projects in collaboration with attorneys and policymakers, and receive stipends to help fund their legal education.

Professor Robert Illig is leading the way to an innovative approach to business law that emphasizes entrepreneurship, deal-making skills, sustainability, and hands-on learning. Professor Illig's mergers and acquisitions "transactional laboratory" brought Oregon Law students together with Portland business attorneys, introducing the students to the process of doing a deal and the relationships among the various parties. Additionally, Professor Illig has been instrumental in developing a groundbreaking course in sustainable business -- one of the first such courses in the nation.

And because we are a small school, Oregon law students get to know their teachers, working and studying with them from their very first day of law school. Our students also, however, enjoy the breadth and depth of a major research university - a place where they can take classes in a number of disciplines and apply those credits to their law degrees. With an educational program like this, it is no wonder that Oregon has earned a spot in the top tier of American law schools by reputation among other law faculty.

Oregon students thrive. Oregon's warm and collegial approach brings out the best in our students. Learning together in a beautiful and comfortable environment, they make life-long friendships and make achievement a way of life. Our students' collegiality and spirit of professionalism is reflected in their generous public service, and a rigorous yet supportive intellectual environment. Upon graduation, Oregon students take those values with them to a wide variety of legal practices. Oregon is well known for its public-minded spirit, and our students and graduates have established a tradition of leadership in the public interest:

For five years running, Oregon law students have won the Oregon State Bar's pro bono challenge, donating a larger number of hours to public service than any law school in the state.

Oregon law students created a University of Oregon chapter of Alternative Dispute Resolution Advocates, a national organization for students interested in dispute resolution. They were so successful that the American Bar Association named Oregon's group "Chapter of the Year."

Our PIPS Program (Public Interest/Public Service) helps students channel their efforts and studies into ways to help the world. Student fellows in the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics address issues as varied as world hunger, immigration, and the death penalty. Domestic Violence clinic students represent more than 400 battered women each year.

Although prestigious federal judicial clerkships are hard to come by, Oregon students rank sixth in the country in clerkships with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Oregon students do. Oregon's clinical programs and "centers of excellence" provide its students with interdisciplinary and practical opportunities that get them out of the classroom and into real-world challenges:

Oregon's ADR (Appropriate Dispute Resolution) Center, a nationally renowned program, puts dispute resolution theory into practice, educating students in negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. Students can participate in a mediation clinic, take a hands-on class in negotiation, or earn an interdisciplinary master's degree in conflict resolution concurrently with their law degrees.

The ENR (Environmental and Natural Resources) Center is one of the top ten environmental law programs in the country. Oregon created the nation's first public interest environmental law clinic, where its students work on cutting edge environmental issues. Students also produce an annual public interest environmental law conference -- the oldest and largest of its kind.

Oregon's Center for Law and Entrepreneurship, founded with a generous donation from businesswoman Carolyn Chambers, affords students the opportunity to work in the Small Business Clinic helping start-up businesses organize and flourish. Students also take advantage of our "transactional lab" program to train with lawyers in major Portland law firms. Through our Portland program, students extern at some of Oregon's most innovative companies - Nike and Mentor Graphics among them. Students working with the Center also develop actual new products and businesses based on emerging technologies in the Technology and Entrepreneurship Program.

Legal research and writing skills are critical to any lawyer's arsenal. Our LRW program is considered by other law schools to be one of the top 12 in the country. Through its course offerings, every first-year student does the hard work of writing -- and, after intensive feedback, rewriting.

Oregon's criminal prosecution and defense clinics get students into the courtroom as early as the summer after their second year. Other students represent clients in the domestic violence clinic.

In sum, Oregon is scholarly, international, interdisciplinary, and practical. Our diverse and highly accomplished students learn, thrive, and do. Join us. You'll love it here.

Margie Paris