Formation | 1900 |
---|---|
Type | Learned society |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
Location | |
President
|
Paul Marcus, College of William & Mary (since January 2017) |
Key people
|
Judith Areen, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer; Wendy Collins Perdue, University of Richmond, President-Elect |
Website | [1] |
The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), formed in 1900, is a non-profit organization of 179 law schools in the United States. These member schools enroll and graduate most of the nation's lawyers. AALS incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization in 1971. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C.
The plenary legislative body of AALS is the House of Representatives, composed of one representative from each member school, selected by faculty from that school. A 10-member Executive Committee leads AALS. It is composed of the President, Immediate Past President and President-Elect, six other elected members and, ex officio, the AALS Executive Director. The Executive Committee has the responsibility for conducting the association’s affairs in the interim between the annual meetings of the House of Representatives, which elects the officers and other Executive Committee members.
The AALS Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of law faculty in the world. Law teachers, librarians, and administrators from law schools of other nations attend the four-day gathering each year. Since the 1970s, the conference has taken place in early January, rotating its location among several large U.S. cities including New York City, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Programs at the conference explore professional development topics, legal issues, and administrative concerns. Legal educators use the conference to connect with their colleagues from other law schools and countries around matters of common interest.
AALS hosts a number of events throughout the year. The annual AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education has become a mainstay of the association’s activities with the 2015 conference having almost 700 clinicians in attendance. The conference's sessions focus on practice areas and common areas of concern for clinicians.
Every summer, AALS offers the New Law School Teachers Conference in Washington, D.C. This meeting provides professional development and networking opportunities to law faculty in their first few years of teaching, including clinical and legal writing teachers.
AALS periodically holds other meetings focused on professional development concerns. Recent topics have included torts, environmental law, constitutional law, intellectual property, family law, and business law.
Each year, AALS compiles the Faculty Appointments Register (FAR) from information submitted by candidates for entry-level, tenure-track law teaching jobs. Law school hiring teams review this information and invite candidates to screening interviews at the Faculty Recruitment Conference held each fall in Washington, D.C. Successful candidates are then invited to interview at the schools interested in hiring them.