Dear Friends,

This has been an exciting year at the Law School, with a major focus on expanding opportunities for our students—from increasing our offerings related to AI, to better promoting our clinical education program, to new developments in how we are preparing and supporting students interested in legal teaching and careers in public service. 

In this issue of The Record, you’ll read about some of these new initiatives. Last fall, we launched the AI Lab, which offers a unique hands-on opportunity for students to study how artificial intelligence can shape legal practice; the outcome of this class was a brand-new legal tech tool, built by our students and powered by AI. 

I’m also proud of the launch of our new Public Interest Leadership Program, designed to support students pursuing careers in government, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations. This program reaffirms our law school’s commitment to preparing students for public-minded lawyering roles. 

Our cover story highlights another priority we’re currently focusing on at the Law School: helping alumni pursue careers in legal academia. The story profiles several alumni who have successfully become law professors. It also offers advice to students and alumni who might be considering pursuing that path. (If you’re interested in trying to become a law professor, please let me know!) Their stories underscore how the Law School provides an exceptionally strong foundation for teaching and scholarship that influences how law is understood across institutions. 

Our commitment to serious inquiry is equally evident in the faculty work featured in this issue. Climate change presents one of the most complex and consequential legal challenges of our time. Professors Hajin Kim, Mark Templeton, and David Weisbach exemplify the Law School’s multi-faceted approach to solving such problems. Their work spans empirical analysis, clinical leadership, and international legal frame-works, demonstrating the depth and breadth of our faculty’s leadership and ideas.

Our theory in practice feature continues in our profile of Professor Emily Buss, whose work in juvenile law has made a lasting impact on both doctrine and policy. Her scholarship and advocacy illustrate how sustained academic inquiry can shape legal systems affecting children and families. By bringing clarity and rigor to deeply human questions, her work exemplifies the Law School’s belief that scholarly excellence and real-world impact reinforce one another.

And on a lighter note, the D’Angelo Law Library’s newest additions to its collections—law-themed games and children’s books—reflect our creativity in finding different ways 

for our community to engage with the law and even share it with loved ones. 

Taken together, the stories in this issue offer a snapshot of a law school deeply invested in the life of ideas—and in the people who carry those ideas forward. Our alumni extend the Law School’s influence as scholars, teachers, and practitioners. Our faculty continues to advance knowledge through research and practice. And our students benefit from an environment that prizes curiosity, independence, and serious engagement with complex questions and new technologies.

I hope you enjoy this issue of The Record and see in its pages a reflection of the community you helped build.

Adam Chilton
Dean, Howard G. Krane Professor of Law