MEMORANDUM 04-07

In its commitment to support its members in achieving diversity at all ranks within the law school community, the Association will maintain two lists, a list of women and a list of minorities, who have either expressed interest directly or have been recommended, as candidates for law school deanships. By maintaining these lists the Association will be able to make them available to dean search committees interested in having a diverse pool of candidates that includes women and minorities in their searches.

The Association would like to request that you provide names of women and minority faculty members and administrators that you think should be included on one or both of these lists. Once we have received your nominations we will proceed to obtain the permission of the nominees to allow their names to be placed on the lists. We will make a solicitation for names to be added to these lists annually.

This is our second year for the maintenance of the Minority Deans Databank and it is the Association's third year as the host of the Women Deans Databank, which had been maintained by the Georgetown University Law Center in prior years. The past response to the Women Deans Databank has been very favorable, supported overwhelmingly by deans across the country, and it has received much praise from search committees that have used it in their searches. For years there have been numerous expressions of interest in creating a similar databank for minority candidates. We are very excited about being able to add this new databank to our services.

We encourage you to use this service, whenever a dean search committee is formed, by sending your request for the list to the AALS Deputy Director at jsaltalamachia@aals.org.

Let me thank you in advance for your participation in this important initiative to enhance the opportunities for women and minority dean candidates.

cc:    AALS Executive Committee
        Deans of Fee-Paid and Modified Service Fee-Paid Schools

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