The AALS Nominating Committee for 2021 Officers and Members of the Executive Committee met in September to consider nominations from faculty members and deans at AALS member schools. The Committee received a number of nominations for the positions to be filled. The individuals they recommend are not only accomplished teacher-scholars, each has also been a highly capable volunteer for AALS. The nominees will be voted on electronically in advance of the AALS Annual Meeting.
Erwin Chemerinsky is Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He received a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude. His areas of expertise are constitutional law, federal practice, civil rights and civil liberties, and appellate litigation.
Previously, he was the founding Dean, Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science from 2008-2017. He taught at Duke Law School from 2004-2008, and he won the Duke University Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award in 2006. Before that, he taught for 21 years at the University of Southern California, Gould School of Law. Dean Chemerinsky also taught at UCLA School of Law and DePaul University College of Law.
Dean Chemerinsky is the author of 11 books and more than 200 law review articles. He frequently argues cases before the nation’s highest courts, including the United States Supreme Court, and also serves as a commentator on legal issues for national and local media. He writes a regular column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country.
Dean Chemerinsky’s association with AALS spans decades. He served as a member of the Executive Committee from 2017-2019. He has moderated and spoken at a number of Annual Meeting sessions over the course of nearly 30 years. He has chaired the Section on Federal Courts, and sat on the Planning Committee for the 1990 Annual Meeting Mini-Workshop on Teaching the Law and Ethics of Lawyering Throughout the Curriculum and the Committee to Review Scholarly Papers for the 2007 Annual Meeting. In 2009, he authored “Why Not Clinical Education,” published in the AALS joint publication Clinical Law Review.
In January 2014 and again in 2017, National Jurist magazine named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States. In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dan Filler is the Dean and Professor of Law at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. He is a graduate of Brown University (AB) and New York University School of Law (JD), where he served as an editor for the New York University Law Review. Prior to entering the academy, he clerked for the Honorable J. Dickson Phillips, Jr. at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Dean Filler also served as a public defender with the Bronx Defenders and the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Prior to joining the faculty at Drexel University, he worked at the University of Alabama School of Law from 1998-2006 teaching doctrinal and clinical courses.
Dean Filler has taught a variety of courses throughout his career, including Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Juvenile Justice Law, Torts, Cybercrime, Disability Law, Professional Responsibility, Crime and Community Seminar, Punishment and Society Seminar, and Justice Lawyering. His scholarly work has largely focused on capital punishment, juvenile justice, and sex crimes. He has been published in the Virginia Law Review, the California Law Review and the Iowa Law Review. He also co-founded the nationally-recognized blog The Faculty Lounge.
Dean Filler has been involved with AALS in a variety of capacities. He served as the chair of the AALS Section on Law and Humanities and served on leadership of many other sections. Dean Filler was involved in presenting the case for Drexel’s membership to AALS. He also has been involved in the Scholarly Papers Competition review committee, the Associate Dean’s Section, the 2020 AALS Dean’s Forum and 2021 AALS Annual Meeting planning committees, and the executive committee of the Dean’s Section. He has most recently joined the Dean’s Steering Committee. Dean Filler was elected to the American Law Institute in 2017.
Danielle M. Conway is the Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law at The Pennsylvania State University Dickinson Law. She is a graduate of New York University (BS), Howard University School of Law (JD, cum laude), and George Washington University Law School (LL.M.). Prior to joining the faculty at Dickinson Law, she served as dean of University of Maine School of Law. She was on the faculty of University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law for 14 years. Dean Conway was previously a member of the faculty of both Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. In 2016, Dean Conway retired from the US Army after 27 years of combined active, reserve, and national guard service.
Dean Conway has taught subjects including Torts, Internet Law and Policy, Advanced Copyright Law, Contracts Law, Intellectual Property, and Patent Law, among others. Her research and scholarship interests include Intellectual property law, licensing intellectual property, international intellectual property law, internet law and policy, and government contracts law. Dean Conway has published six books in addition to several articles and essays, many of which have focused on topics including advocacy for public education and the actualization of the rights of minority groups.
Dean Conway has been a panelist and speaker at numerous sessions at AALS Annual Meetings for many years. She was also a member of the AALS Membership Review Committee in 2018. In 2016, she became a member of the Dean’s Steering Committee. Most recent, Dean Conway co-curated the AALS Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project. She received the 2020 Belva Ann Lockwood Award from the GW Law Association for Women and was also honored as part of the Lawyers of Color Power List 2020. She has been a member of the American Law Institute since 2004.
