Law School
Executive Summary
This Plan charts a course that reflects Duke Law School's own vision of quality - one that is particularly collaborative, interdisciplinary, community-minded, and relevant to the world. It builds on areas of excellence identified in Strategic Plan 2000-2005: science- and technology-related fields (such as intellectual property, biotechnology, telecommunications, environment, and health); international and comparative law; constitutional law; and business and finance. These areas have seen an explosion of new faculty, centers and interdisciplinary programs, law journals, clinics, and academic programs. Strategic Plan 2006-2011 continues to focus on defining excellence at Duke on its own terms, taking advantage of the Law School's current momentum, its extraordinary synergies and special strengths, and its entrepreneurial energy.
The five-year goals in this plan all support a characteristic Duke identity. Thus, for example, the search for additional excellent faculty will emphasize support for Duke's unique interdisciplinary strengths and goals. The Plan's student initiatives recognize and expand Duke Law School's extraordinary community, placing particular priority on student mentorship, the development of student leadership skills (through the distinctive "Duke Blueprint"), and the cultivation of opportunities for closer student-faculty research and "Capstone" experiences. The new Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic will draw on and enhance collaborations with the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, and other clinical opportunities will build on Duke's unique Neighborhood Partnership Initiative. New academic centers in leadership, and international and comparative legal studies, will help transform some of the Law School's special strengths into signature Duke programs. The Law School's Arts Project will support a new Duke University interdisciplinary focus in the arts. In these and other ways, this Plan charts a course that may not be unique in each and every separate component, but together defines an excellence that is Duke's own.
The highlights of the Plan's major goals are as follows:
Faculty
1. The Law School will recruit 10 new faculty with the primary objective of increasing the School's overall quality and reputation, supporting University interdisciplinary initiatives, and increasing the number of minorities and women on the faculty.
Students
2. The Law School will expand opportunities for upper-class students to engage in intensive writing projects under the close supervision of faculty, including advanced research projects, focused practice-oriented experiences, "Capstone" projects, research colloquia, and other student-faculty collaborations.
LAW SCHOOL: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 1 | 2