SMU Law Hires New Dean

[StallionsModelT]

Jennifer M. Collins is the new Dean of the Dedman Law School at SMU. Background is family law and as most recently vice provost at Wake Forest University. She also has private sector experience and was attorney-adviser to the U.S. Dept of Justice Office of Legal Counsel and a prosecutor for the homicide section in D.C. Undergrad at Yale and J.D. from Harvard. Here is the press release.

http://www.smu.edu/News/2013/jennifer-c ... -17dec2013

Sounds pretty impressive. Thoughts?

[PonyKai]

I don't know enough about Law Dean's to comment intelligently. But my initial opinion is that I'd rather have a T-1 law school with serious challenges hire someone who has successfully run another law school before, as opposed to a Vice Provost at a T-40 Vice Provost.

[gostangs]

I want to love this hire but the department of justice thing makes me worried about an abundance of PC and an undersupply of ability to pull in big bucks.

[Digetydog]

She seems like a big risk for a school that needs a sure thing.

Btw - is the SMU Law School really that small?

[PonyKai]

That has to be per class. So, give, or take, between 600 and 700 students, which sounds about right, and is a good size considering a huge number of schools have had to rapidly scale back their law programs.

[CoxMustangFan]

That has to be per class. So, give, or take, between 600 and 700 students, which sounds about right, and is a good size considering a huge number of schools have had to rapidly scale back their law programs.

@Stl, Gtown is a good program no doubt, but given your passion for SMU I'm just curious why you didn't attend SMU. Interested in government work?

[PonyKai]

i started at CUA and transferred to Georgetown.

I got into Baylor and UH and chose to go back to DC b/c it's a great place for law school.

SMU wait listed me, and gave me an answer 24 hours before the semester started at Catholic. SMU was also, out of 17 schools applied to, the ONLY school to make me pay the "application fee." All 16 other schools (and almost all schools in this climate) waive them with a simply email, Oh, SMU's application fee was also far and away more expensive than any other school out there. And when I tried to get an unpaid, volunteer position with a couple offices on campus after graduating to get some legal experience and make sure law school was 110% what I wanted to do, I was flatly told all of those positions were for "SMU students." I guess as a graduate of less than three months living 50 feet off campus, that wasn't "SMU student" enough for them.

In short, I'm a bitter little sh*t about the law school experience because I think that SMU treats its own graduates like garbage.

[Digetydog]

i started at CUA and transferred to Georgetown.

I got into Baylor and UH and chose to go back to DC b/c it's a great place for law school.

SMU wait listed me, and gave me an answer 24 hours before the semester started at Catholic. SMU was also, out of 17 schools applied to, the ONLY school to make me pay the "application fee." All 16 other schools (and almost all schools in this climate) waive them with a simply email, Oh, SMU's application fee was also far and away more expensive than any other school out there. And when I tried to get an unpaid, volunteer position with a couple offices on campus after graduating to get some legal experience and make sure law school was 110% what I wanted to do, I was flatly told all of those positions were for "SMU students." I guess as a graduate of less than three months living 50 feet off campus, that wasn't "SMU student" enough for them.

In short, I'm a bitter little sh*t about the law school experience because I think that SMU treats its own graduates like garbage.

When I have reached out to the B-school for help, I have been pleasantly surprised at how helpful they have been. My experience dealing with the law school was about the same as yours.

[smusportspage]

Hence a new Dean maybe?

[PonyKai]

To add on, and, since this is second hand to me, but verifiable, so for yall, you can take it with a few grains of salt. But, I have three friends/fraternity brothers who all graduated from SMU, and all did very, very well at SMU and on the LSAT (much better then me on both accounts). They wound up at Harvard, Washington & Lee, and Georgetown. They all obviously got in to SMU, and were offered far less in scholarships than schools that are much, much better than SMU offered. So, it wasn't a tough choice for them to turn down a borderline T-2 law school offering them so little money.

My experiences with other parts of SMU, and the Athletic Department in particular, have been great, I worked in the AD and had a blast while I was there. But my personal experience with Dedman Law, and the experiences of my friends, have been atrocious.

[smusportspage]

Hope things change for the better over at the law school with the hiring of the new Dean. Law school can be very expensive and scholarships give one more leaverage post law school as far as flexibility. Don't want to be chained to a big firm for years to just pay for law school if the big firm is not your cup of tea.

[tristatecoog]

Latest FT entering class stats:
154 students
3.73 GPA and 164 LSAT