On Tuesday the Emerald sat down with Law School Dean Margie Paris to chat about the law school and what’s been up this summer.
ODE: How have things being going since you took over as dean?
Paris: Very nicely. It’s been a busy summer. We’ve not only been planning for the upcoming year, but we also have the ABA accreditation year this year, a sabbatical accreditation we go through every seven years. So we’ve been preparing a massive self-study document that is filed with the ABA (The American Bar Association). We are engaging in a hiring season, during which we’ll hire probably two faculty members. So it’s been a whirl-wind but it’s been a lot of fun.
ODE: Have you had very many chances to interact with students?
Paris: I have! We had a number of students come in yesterday and today for a pre-orientation, and I also met some of them over the summer. So we’ve gotten to know some of them, it’s going to be a great class, they’re eager to get started.
ODE: What looks so good about this years’ class?
Paris: A great group of people. We’ve spent a lot of time in the admissions process. Reading each file individually, our assistant dean for admissions is Larry Seno, he does a wonderful job of pouring through those files with a faculty committee. So they’re bright, you know they have good numbers in terms of their undergraduate institutions, their GPAs, their LSATs. And they’re interesting.
ODE: How many are there?
Paris: About 180.
ODE: What would you like to say to those Law School students?
Paris: It’s a pretty diverse class, in terms of not only students of color and so forth, but in terms of their interest areas. We have some of them who are very interested in public interest, because we tend to attract students with an interest in public interest, but we also have students who are business focused and attracted by our really strong business programs. …
Their first semester is incredibly difficult. They will be having reading assignments that take them longer that they have to read more carefully than they’ve done before. … They’re going to be experiencing some stress. And we try to make it as humane for them as possible, but we try to make it so that the nature of the thing is that you have to become deeply imbedded in a new language, a new way of reading, materials that they haven’t spent much time with before and learning a huge amount of material. So for them it’s like getting on a rocket and it shoots off and you just feel those G-forces.
ODE: Any advice you have for them?
Paris: I think the best advice is to try to keep perspective. You know, they need to remember that they’ll get through it, that everybody experiences the stress, they’re not alone. All of those perspective issues.
…
ODE: What are some of the top places that University alumni have gone to work?
Paris: More than half of our class each year stays in Oregon. And they go all over the state. … We have a lot of alumns who go to the states of Washington and California, so those three together are the bulk of our graduates. But we also have students who go to Washington D.C. We typically have a couple who are doing government work or law firm work in Washington, New York, Nevada, Alaska, Montana. So all over the place.
ODE: So what’s the toughest part of your job as dean?
Paris: The toughest part is tearing myself out of the building. Because I love being here, I love interacting with students, I love working with the faculty and the staff. But I have to – because we’re in a capital campaign – I should be increasing the amount of time I spend out of the building with alumns and with donors to about 50 percent. And I’m just starting to increase that time. And that’s hard for me. Because here is really where I have been. You know I’ve spent my career here, as a faculty member, so this is a new piece of work for me and it’s also new for me not to view myself as coming in here everyday.
ODE: How far away do you have to go?
Paris: I’ve gone to California, Seattle, Portland a lot. I have trip planned – at least tentatively – for Washington D.C. I think I’ll be going to New York this fall.
ODE: Have you been to New York before?
Paris: I have never been there!
ODE: Are you excited?
Paris: I’m very excited! Yeah.
ODE: What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get there once you have some free time?
Paris: I want to wander around in some of the neighborhoods and go to ethnic grocery stores. I love to cook, so I like to go to grocery stores that sell things that I can’t get in Eugene. Although the number of things you can’t get in Eugene is declining.