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the Dean's Blog
Dean’s Message
Welcome to the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law! We have developed a distinct model of 21st century legal education designed to deepen your theoretical understanding of the law, sharpen your analytical skills, and give you the practical knowledge and skills that will enable you to hit the ground running when you graduate. I think you will discover much of the reason for that as you look through this website, but let me mention some recent developments at UDM School of Law.
The list of law firms across the country interviewing at our school continues to increase. Whether you are looking for a job in Detroit, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., or elsewhere, we have a network of alumni ready to help you with your search, and we now welcome as part of our on-campus interview program major law firms from all around the country.
Our faculty is comprised of a wonderful balance of excellent scholars and experienced practitioners. In fact, our students have the opportunity to receive instruction and mentoring from a growing list of Distinguished Visiting Professors. These are full-time faculty members who used to be senior partners at major firms. They bring a wonderful mix of wisdom and expertise into the classroom.
We now offer a special Law Firm Program for third-year students that gives all third-year students an opportunity to work on simulated complex transactions in courses designed together with leading law firms across the nation.
Our clinical programs and focus on public interest earned UDM School of Law the prestigious Judy Weightman Award from the ABA Student Lawyer’s Division in 2006. This award is given annually to a law school or individual in recognition of outstanding community service and public interest programs and a commitment to helping those in need. We continue to emphasize our public interest focus through new clinics like our Environmental Law Clinic and Veterans Clinic in 2008. As the Detroit Legal News reported: “Programs and initiatives such as the Urban Law Clinic, Immigration Law Clinic, and the Mobile Law Office have helped bring UDM to the forefront of public interest.”
Our Moot Court teams continue to best opponents from around the nation. In 2008, UDM won the top two National Champion Team awards in the McGee Civil Rights competition and participated in several other national moot court events. Already this year, our UDM teams came in first as the National Champions in the Chicago Bar Association Moot Court Tournament.
In order to encourage students to study abroad, we now offer a modest stipend to many of our first-year full-time students to help defray the travel expenses of traveling abroad to selected programs for study during the summer after their first year of law school. For those students seeking even more international exposure, we offer an increasing range of international and comparative law courses, as well as the opportunity to apply to our unique joint degree program with the University of Windsor in which students learn both US and Canadian law in three years and receive degrees from schools in both countries. This year, we also launched our multiple degree program with Mexico’s premier private university. Our new Degree of the Americas allows UDM students to earn the LED, providing them with the civil law education to practice in Mexico. Ambitious students actually can earn the JD, LLB and LED. Through our LED program, UDM students also can take courses Mexican civil law courses taught in Spanish at UDM, even if they do not pursue the Degree of the Americas.
I could go on and on. I do hope you will spend some time exploring our web-site. And if you are intrigued by what you see, please visit us at an upcoming Visit Day or Open House.
Sincerely,
Mark Gordon,
Dean and Professor of Law
