In 2018, two years afterD. Gordon Smith became dean of theJ. Reuben Clark Law Schoolat Brigham Young University, hetold an audience of law school advisors, “I want BYU to be known as, if not the most innovative law school in the country, then one of the most innovative law schools in the country.” Now, Smith has announced he is stepping down as dean at the end of this semester, after having been the second-longest serving dean in the school’s history.
So how did he do in pursuit of that goal? During his tenure, he drove a number of innovations around innovation and technology, including the launch of LawX, a legal design lab committed to tackling access-to-justice issues with solutions that address pressing legal problems such as debt collection, eviction and asylum. He also served on two Utah Supreme Court task forces that led to the creation of the Utah Sandbox.Also during his tenure as dean, he more than tripled the amount of scholarships available to students, saw the law school’s national ranking rise from 46th to 23rd, pioneered a law and corpus linguistics program, and launched a global leadership program.
Last week, I was at the school’s Provo, Utah, campus, and I sat down with Smith in his office to reflect on his nearly seven years as dean.Smith has been on this podcast twice before:
- BYU Law’s Innovative Dean Gordon Smith On His Next Five Years (March 2021).BYU Law Dean Gordon Smith on Law School Innovation (March 2019.
- Paradigm, home to the practice management platformsPracticePanther,Bill4Time,MerusCaseandLollyLaw; the e-payments platformHeadnote; and the legal accounting softwareTrustBooks.Lawmatics, providing legal client intake, law practice CRM, marketing automation, legal billing, document management, and much more, all in one easy-to-use law practice software.
- Legalweek, the one week where thousands of legal professionals gather to network with their peers, dive deeper into their professional development, and gain the tools to get legal business done, presented by ALM and Law.com March 20-23, 2023.
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