Dean Ronald Weich
'Look out!'
When I say that to University of Baltimore law students, I mean it literally. Among the best features of our state-of-the-art law center are its glass walls and the panoramic views of Baltimore from virtually everywhere in the school. I constantly urge students to look outside the building to achieve perspective about our law school’s place in the community around us.
Our building makes an important statement about the kind of legal education we strive to provide. Virtually every aspect of our school relates to the wider world. The students we recruit and enroll typically bring real-world experience to law school, including the evening students who maintain demanding full-time day jobs while advancing their careers. Our curriculum is conceived around the notion that law must be understood in the context of broader features of society; in fact, students are required to take one of a series of courses entitled “Law in Context.”
But perhaps the most important way our law school relates to the outside world is the way we take advantage of the vibrant legal community around us to teach practical, hands-on legal skills. UB students represent actual clients under the guidance of experienced professors in one of our legal clinics, including the new Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic. They receive credit for rigorously supervised “externships” in private and public law offices and judicial chambers throughout Baltimore and the Maryland-D.C. region. They are taught, mentored and coached on moot court and trial advocacy teams by a network of UB Law alumni and other practicing lawyers, judges and legislators.
Meanwhile, our outstanding full-time faculty members are using the building’s sophisticated technology to bring the real world into their classrooms. For instance, when I taught a Legislation class, I didn’t just talk about the Senate; I live-streamed that day’s Senate floor debates onto the video screen at the front of the room, then had students close their books and laptops and engage in legislative debate themselves. That’s one way we train the next generation of Maryland leaders.
UB Law has doubled down on its long-standing commitment to skills-based learning by guaranteeing that all students who graduate from our school in the years ahead will have engaged in a series of practical legal experiences during their course of study. That guarantee will help ensure that our students remain a step ahead of their peers in this competitive job market.
Other law schools, the ones with the musty libraries and droopy gargoyles, are just beginning to discover “experiential education.” But at UB Law, practical learning is in our DNA. It is who we are and what we are known for.
I’ve never been more proud to serve as dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law. I’m proud of our faculty and staff for their commitment to excellence in all that they do. I’m proud of our extraordinary partnership with the Maryland bench and bar, and our growing network of successful alumni in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. And above all I’m proud of our students for their hard work and determination.
So look out world―UB is on the move.
Ronald Weich
Dean