Meeting of the AALS House of Representatives, January 11, 2025
By 2024 AALS President Melanie Wilson, Dean and Roy L. Steinheimer Jr. Professor of Law at Washington & Lee University School of Law
As I conclude my year as President of the Association of American Law Schools, I have been reflecting with gratitude on the year, and want to share a few final thoughts.
First, I want to express my sincere and extensive appreciation for the opportunity to serve in this role. It has been a tremendous professional honor to hold a leadership role in an organization that has pursued and supported excellence in legal education for 125 years. When I look back at the individuals who have served as president, I feel privileged, indeed, awed to be among them. Herma Hill Kay, Deborah Rhode, Michael Olivas, Lauren Robel, Erwin Chemerinsky, just examples.
As president, I have experienced the joy of interacting with incredible, dedicated, and talented people who facilitated a successful year for the association. I am deeply grateful for each and every one of them. I am especially thankful to my family and to my colleagues at Washington and Lee University School of Law, who made the space and time to allow me to serve in this role, particularly my Provost, Lena Hill, my associate dean for academic affairs, Michelle Lyon Drumbl, and my executive assistant, Mary Ervin.
I am grateful to the AALS staff who work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that every webinar, every program, every research study, every communication from the association, every meeting of the executive committee, and every AALS conference is high quality and well organized. This Annual Meeting is a good example of the staff’s dedication, tenacity, and adaptability. All of you know that just a few weeks ago, the AALS staff had to shift the physical location of this gathering. That involves so many logistics, details, expenses, and extra hours of planning and implementation. As usual, most attendees will never know how hard and smart the staff worked to host this high-quality meeting in the face of so many unexpected challenges.
In no small part, the incredible work of the AALS staff is due to the extraordinary day-to-day leadership of the Executive Director and CEO of the association. When I became President at last year’s Annual Meeting, AALS was being led by the formidable Judy Areen. Judy successfully steered the AALS in that role for ten years, after having also served as AALS president in 2006. In July of 2024, another exceptional and highly accomplished leader became the Executive Director and CEO – Kellye Testy, who also served as AALS President in 2016.
I am grateful to Judy and Kellye and to my colleagues on the 2024 Executive Committee – Anthony Crowell (like Growl), Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod, Risa Goluboff, Renee Hutchins Laurent, Kevin Washburn, John Valery White, and my successor, Austen Parrish, for guiding this organization with passion, wisdom, and professionalism. I offer a special thank you to Executive Committee member and my predecessor as AALS president, Mark Alexander, who has so often offered me encouraging words, thoughtful and wise advice, and warmth and kindness this past year.
All of these people have contributed to another successful and enjoyable year. I have learned so much from each of you. Thank you for your service and for your friendship. Thank you, too, to our engaged membership for your contributions to this work, our work. As you all know, AALS has a very small staff. It is the work of volunteers in the legal academy who ensure the continued success of the organization.
In addition to the collegiality that I have felt and valued this past year, I am proud to say that AALS has accomplished a great deal this year. In just a bit, our new executive director will talk about a few of the highlights. I will leave most of that to Kellye Testy, but I do want to mention the successful transition of our organizational leadership. Kellye is an experienced leader and former law dean. But transitions to new roles with new organizations are always challenging. Thankfully this one has been very smooth. Many people get credit for that. Kevin Washburn for chairing a search committee that identified and attracted an exceptional new leader in Kellye. Judy Areen who graciously offered her full support to Kellye during the transition. Kellye who arrived with great experience and even more enthusiasm and vision, and the AALS staff who embraced the search, the transition, and the opportunities that accompany change. Thank you all.
Last year, as I began my presidency, I challenged each us to continue to model courage and to urge others – our colleagues, campus partners, students, staff and alumni – to act courageously. I chose courage as my theme because I know that excellent teaching requires it and always has. As law teachers, we open minds and prepare change makers, and preparing critical thinkers is not always popular.
Meaningful research and scholarly excellence require courage too, as does pursuing service to our communities and our profession in times of great controversy and divisiveness.
I want to thank AALS and its members for embracing courage in our collective work this year. Acting with courage and collaboratively, we continued to advance the interests of excellence in legal education. That took many, many forms – from the American Law school Faculty Study, webinars, workshops, the yearly conference on clinical legal education, the publication of an illustrated history of AALS’s first 125 years, and participation in more than 100 sections, and service on AALS standing, special, and planning committees, to name just a few. I have been particularly excited for this year’s Annual Meeting and the hundreds of programs and panels, many of which fully embrace the courage theme.
This outstanding work of the AALS and its members encourages me. I remain optimistic for our future, and confident that AALS and its members will continue to lead as we prepare the next generation of capable, ethical, and transformative lawyers. Thank you – each of you – for continuing to act with courage and for demonstrating to our students how to do the same.
It has been my honor and privilege to serve as your president. Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to staying connected and to more progress together.
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