Texas A&M University School of Law is quickly distinguishing itself as an institution to watch.
At a time when most schools are cutting back, Texas A&M University has made an unparalleled investment in the future of legal education for Texas, the nation and beyond by attracting an unprecedented 12 new faculty members for its School of Law located inFort Worth.
Five of the new faculty focus on intellectual property issues, adding strength to the school’s Center for Law and Intellectual Property and building on A&M’s strong reputation in engineering and life sciences. These hires cover all aspects of intellectual property, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Together with two existing scholars in the field, A&M Law is now in contention to have one of the country’s top intellectual property law programs.
“This extensive concentration of intellectual property faculty offers students comprehensive coverage, allowing them to develop specialized training based on their individual interests and career paths,” said intellectual property expert and incoming professorPeter Yu. “Our newly expanded program offers an unparalleled focus and makes A&M Law immediately stand out in the intellectual property field.”
Among A&M Law’s seven additional hires are thought leaders with strong backgrounds in legal ethics, commercial law, legal writing, law and economics, tax and international law. They include the newly appointed President of Texas A&M University, Michael K. Young, whose two decades as a legal scholar and dean at Columbia Law included the development of internationally recognized programs in Japanese and Korean legal studies and authorship of numerous briefs, articles and books on U.S. trade law and policy. Given his leadership, including presidency at two leading universities and service, it is fitting that he will hold tenure in both Texas A&M’s School of Law and the George H. W. Bush School of Government & Public Service.
“I’m pleased to be joining Texas A&M University at this exciting time of my career and their history,” offered Young. “It is a wonderful bonus, to also join my colleagues in the transformation of this law school, legal education nationally and our contributions as scholars to the continued dynamic vitality of Texas.”
“As not only a top tier, public research university, but also a land grant institution, we have a special obligation to bring the academy to the public, and these folks are going to help us expand our efforts to do that,” Dean Andy Morriss said. “We’re particularly excited to have long time bar leaders like legal ethicist Susan Fortney, former Uniform Law Commission Executive Director Bill Henning, and former American Society of International Law Executive Director Charlotte Ku joining us.”
These incoming faculty join the existing academic team, now 55 members strong and punctuated by an ethos of market-disruptive thinking and scholarship. In 2015 alone, A&M Law faculty members have gained national attention for policy papers and commentary on topics including the intersection of water and energy law, developments in intellectual property, law reform in the Middle East, and the changing face of the death penalty.
And in an era when many law schools are cutting staff and faculty as enrollments fall nationally, A&M Law has only enhanced its commitment to lead by expanding curricular options, improving student services, attracting the very best talent and aligning to Texas A&M University’s mission tenet of service to the state, nation and beyond.
One such example is a $370,000 grant awarded to the School of Law from the Access Group. With the grant, A&M Law’s Milan Markovic will serve as principal investigator of the Texas Lawyers Study, examining professional satisfaction and income levels of nearly 88,000 members of the State Bar of Texas. This study will generate an extraordinary amount of data on the economics of the legal profession and the working lives of lawyers that can inform the decision-making of prospective law students and lawyers.
“We’re proud of our work to date, and are inviting all to see how far we’ve come and to take a look at where we are heading,” Morriss said. “By attracting new talent to compliment our strong foundation of scholars, A&M Law is leading by example.”
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