Report of the Executive Director to the AALS House of Representatives

By Judith Areen

This past year began with the appearance of more COVID variants and some of the highest infection rates of the pandemic to date. Most law schools resumed in-person classes in the fall of 2021, but many were forced back to virtual classes for at least the first weeks in January 2022. All of us continue to wrestle with the challenge of living with COVID.

The spring of 2021 brought the beginning of a series of public hearings that reported on the investigation undertaken by a Select Committee of the House on the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. The investigation culminated only last week in the first referral by a Congressional Committee of a former president for criminal prosecution.

Given the serious attacks on democracy that have arisen in the past few years and the role legal education plays in preparing lawyers to support the rule of law, it is particularly fitting that President Erwin Chemerinsky selected as the AALS theme for this meeting “How Law Schools Can Make a Difference.”

As a result of the hearings, we have learned a great deal about the critical role lawyers can play in defending democracy as shown by the work of our president and vice president, Liz Cheney and Jamie Raskin on the Committee, as well as former Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. At the same time, a legal education clearly does not guarantee that all law school graduates are committed to democracy, given the actions of John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Jeffrey Clark among others. We need to devote time and energy to better preparing our graduates for the challenges to democracy, voting rights, and the rule of law that still lie ahead.

1. The Year AALS Became a Hybrid Organization

The past year brought fresh challenges to AALS as well. I can best capture the spirit of our response by describing 2022 as the year AALS became a hybrid organization.

First, the staff continued to conduct most of its work remotely with no decrease in productivity. Beginning last spring, we asked everyone to spend at least one day a week in the office. Given the continuing high rate of COVID infections in DC, and the serious problems with Metro service, it was the right thing to do. Some staff prefer to spend more days in the office, and we developed a system for knowing who would be in the office on different days to minimize health challenges.

Second, for the first time AALS has hired some staff who work entirely remotely, including Darren Stadell, our Director of Technology, who resides in Alberta, Canada, and Alena Allen, our Deputy Director who continues to teach at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. These are not hires we would have made prior to the pandemic, but have learned how to integrate remote work and workers, and that we are able to recruit for some positions far beyond the DC, Maryland and Virginia area.

Finally, our work itself has become decidedly hybrid, and is likely to remain so. Last June AALS hosted the first AALS in-person event in three years. One hundred and twelve attended the 2022 Workshop for New Law School Teachers, considerably more than the 60 to 70 participants in the two years before the pandemic. The number of attendees indicated to us that faculty are interested in connecting in-person for some meetings.

AALS also offered a number of new and complimentary virtual meetings this past year for groups that have traditionally not attended our various meetings. In July we hosted a Workshop for Adjunct Faculty. In October AALS offered its first webinar for emeritus/retired faculty. More than 60 attendees gathered to hear a panel of constitutional law experts offer their insights into the current Supreme Court term.

This Annual Meeting is the first of four in-person meetings AALS will host in 2023 including the Clinical Conference in April in San Francisco, the 2023 New Law Teachers Workshop, and a new Advanced Deans Workshop for deans who are finishing their first year in office. They will both be held in June in Washington, DC. In 2023 AALS will also offer an even larger number of complimentary, virtual AALS programs including a webinar on Hiring Basics for Aspiring Law Professors in April, a Conference on Democracy in May, an Institutional Advancement Conference in June, a Conference on Affirmative Action and webinars for adjuncts and lecturers in July, and a webinar for appointment committees and one for candidates in August.

In addition, an increasing number of AALS Sections are offering workshops and works-in-progress sessions for their members. This past year, 42 sections offered webinars that were attended by nearly 3000 registrants on topics ranging from Rethinking Criminal Law Language, and Unpacking Disability Accommodations in Law School, to Cultural Heritage Destruction in Ukraine, and Teaching Cybersecurity Law and Policy.

2. Serving as a Voice for Legal Education

AALS continues to showcase the innovations and accomplishments of member and fee-paid law schools for policymakers, leaders of the bar and bench, the media, prospective law students, and the public.

We continue to rely on your schools (and your communication directors) to submit material to be featured on the AALS website. Most national reporters do not follow most of the nearly 200 ABA accredited law schools, but they follow AALS, particularly our weekly digest of activities at law schools around the nation. In this way we increase the likelihood that your accomplishments and those of your school will be shared with a national audience.

We need to devote time and energy to better preparing our graduates for the challenges to our democracy, voting rights, and the rule of law that still lie ahead.

As we hope you know, the AALS home page now also includes a calendar of upcoming symposia at law schools around the nation. There is also a list of recent books by law faculty. The webpage contains directions on how you can submit information about your new book to the list. You can also subscribe to the weekly Legal Education News and Blogs digests.

3. Improving Services to AALS Sections

In the past year, we have doubled the full-time staff who support sections (from 1 to 2 because, as you know, AALS has quite a small staff). They provide regular information to sections encouraging them to put on programs for their members throughout the year. We ask you to join this new effort to improve the work accomplished by sections by reaching out to faculty at your law school to explain the work of sections and to encourage them to become more active by joining the leadership of at least one section.

4. History of AALS

There has never been a history written of the AALS. This past spring, the Executive Committee decided to undertake one for the 125th anniversary that occurs in 2025.

We have begun collecting both information and photographs for the planned book on our history—and we invite you to send us things that you would like to see included.

Among the interesting things we have learned so far is that while it is often said that the AALS was founded by the ABA calling a meeting in 1900, it would be more accurate to say that the ABA was founded in 1878 by academics in the ABA. Later, academics in the ABA founded the first ABA Section on Legal Education and then arranged the meeting that produced the AALS itself.

The leader of the founding of the ABA was Simeon Baldwin, who was a law professor at Yale and the ultimate association man. Over the span of two decades, he served as president of the ABA, the AALS (in 1902), the American Social Science Association, the American Historical Association, the International Law Association, and the American Political Science Association.

For most of its first 60 years, AALS was essentially an all-white gentlemen’s club. Things only began to change in 1966 when Clyde Ferguson, who was then dean of Howard Law School, was elected to the Executive Committee. The first woman was not elected to the Executive Committee until 1972, and she was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then a faculty member at Rutgers.

Change to the structure of AALS did not arrive until 1972 when the first Sections were established and faculty were empowered to join Sections of their choice for the first time. Before 1972, members of committees and roundtable discussions had to be individually appointed by the president of AALS.

In his remarks to the 1972 House of Representatives, President Richard Maxwell, recently dean of UCLA Law, captured the importance of the moment when he announced:

“We are aware that this [new system] may not work smoothly at once. We may in fact have a bit of chaos at the beginning of it. But we think it can be made to work so that we can keep the Association vital and responsive and have something other than an artificial mechanism of selection of people who want to work in various field.”

I’m sure Dean Maxwell would be delighted to see so many of you here 50 years later, despite the challenges of traveling during a pandemic, and still dedicated to the mission of the AALS.

5. Closing

I will end by thanking the hard-working staff of the AALS. This small staff of 26 plus a handful of students oversee not only this meeting but support you in all the work you do for AALS.

It continues to be a privilege and an honor to work with you and the more than 1000 volunteer faculty, deans, and administrators who plan our programs, speak at them, serve as officers and work on new initiatives. Without your support and hard work and that of your faculty and staff colleagues, AALS could not function. My deepest thanks to all of you.