Dean’s Message

Many of you have already heard the news that Dean Mark Gordon has moved on to a new position as President of Defiance College in Defiance, Ohio.  After seven years of serving the School of Law and making vast improvements to it, he will be greatly missed.  I admired Mark. I have a long-term goal of continuing to develop and strengthen the programs for which Mark, along with the faculty, administration, staff and alumni, have worked so hard, while also addressing the critical facility needs of the law school.  I am energized—and humbled—by the tremendous outpouring of support I have received from the UDM School of Law faculty, and indeed, the entire UDM community.

We are completing another exciting academic year at School of Law.  In the fall, we welcomed a class of 263 new law students, with 55% hailing from Michigan and 45% from 28 other states and provinces and 7 countries.  I am pleased to say that they reflect the School’s expanding attractiveness to students from around the nation and other parts of the world.

There are many reasons for that.  As you know, the faculty, administrators and alumni have worked tirelessly on redesigning our model of legal education over the past several years, and the results have been tremendous.  As the first Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Law five years ago after forty years of private practice with the Dykema Gossett, PLC, I am particularly proud of the initiation and development of our Law Firm Program.  This Program is not just up and running, but we already offer a dozen different “departments” for our students to work in.  They grapple with simulated complex corporate transactions in the core class, and then the various issues that arise in the modules.  This program has become a national model for teaching law students the practical elements of the practice of law in a wide variety of areas, and transitioning them into practice.  Copy-cats are emerging throughout the legal education community, which may be the greatest form of flattery.

Our Moot Court program, thanks to the extraordinary effort and creativity of Professors Michelle Streicher, Cara Cunningham and Karen Henning, together with the students of the Moot Court Board, has achieved great success and is now a national champion!  You will read more about these exciting accomplishments later in this issue. 

We continue to receive significant attention for Project SALUTE and the Veterans Law Clinic, as well.  Recent visits have led to media attention in outlets such as WGN-TV in Chicago, Fox News and NBC affiliates in San Diego, and elsewhere.  And now the Young Lawyers Division of the ABA is partnering with us to increase the number of pro-bono attorneys assisting across the country in the national tour of our Veterans Law Clinic.

Another accolade received this year is from preLaw Magazine, a National Jurist publication, naming UDM School of Law as one of the 10 most innovative law schools in the country.  The article touches on job opportunities available to our students, our wide array of clinics, the Law Firm Program, and the Mobile Law Office and its trek across the nation with Project SALUTE.

I look forward to the years ahead, as we work together in unity for the benefit of UDM School of Law.

Sincerely,

Lloyd A. Semple
Dean and Professor of Law