This session will focus on the evolving role of the
experiential dean/director in legal education. The presenters will draw on a
2016 survey they administered to experiential deans and an accompanying article
they published, Exploring the Meaning of
Experiential Deaning (abstract and article available at clinical.aals.org),
to engage attendees in considering the nature and benefits of the experiential
dean and director positions that many law schools have created, sometimes only
in the past decade or so. Among the questions this session will address are the
responsibilities and priorities that experiential deans and directors can
undertake, the importance of these goals and projects to the functioning of
experiential programs in particular and to law schools in general, and the
challenges that experiential deans and directors may face in fulfilling these
goals and priorities.
This discussion will lay the groundwork for identifying the
structural features of the experiential dean position that can enhance its
accomplishments and reduce its challenges. Identifying these structural
features may help in: consolidating experiential leadership positions in law
school administrations, cultivating understanding among institutional
administrators about the particular value of various models for these
positions, and planning through institutional processes for the future of
experiential programs, including in situations of turnover among deans and
experiential deans/directors. Among the purposes of the session is to build on
the presenters’ previously published article to generate a thinking process and
a set of ideas for attendees to take with them that can strengthen experiential
leadership in law schools, facilitate its institutional accomplishments, and
provide support for those holding these leadership posts.