Irreplaceable People
By Nancy H. Rogers

Sometimes people are irreplaceable.

Suppose, for example, that Carl Monk had not helped to launch the International Association of Law Schools. We would still not have an international association for exchange and collaboration among law schools and law scholars. To the future benefit of legal education globally, Carl realized that it was time to begin this process. With 15 years of experience as the AALS Executive Director, Carl understood how to organize such a group. He was persistent and tactful, and the respect he had earned for wise and thoughtful judgment led others to join quickly. Already the new IALS includes 71 law schools from other nations, joined with 61 U.S. law schools.

Suppose, as a second example, Philip G. Schrag (Georgetown University Law Center) had not written an article that pointed out in detail how debt from educational loans precluded many law graduates from pursuing public service careers and had not suggested a realistic and effective solution.1 Or that Peter A. Winograd (University of New Mexico School of Law) had not championed this cause for six years within the ABA and AALS. Or that Phil had not spent hundreds of hours over seven years persuading members of Congress to provide the loan relief. Or that Phil and Peter had failed to encourage many others of you to join them to change the law. Without their efforts, it is hard to imagine that Congress would have enacted the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007,2 making it possible for our graduates to manage law school debt as they serve in modestly paying public interest jobs.

These examples point to the value of what Carl, Phil, and Peter have contributed to legal education and the nation. Thanks to Carl’s leadership, we will have regular exchanges with, and can expect to import the best ideas from, legal educators throughout the world. We can use the International Association of Law Schools, as we do the AALS domestically, to form collaborative scholarly ventures across borders.

Thanks to Phil’s and Peter’s leadership, our graduates will have income-based educational loan repayment and later loan forgiveness that permits them to work long term for a government entity or a “Section 501( c)(3)” nonprofit organization.3

They did not do it alone. At the Annual Meeting we will honor our colleagues from throughout the world in legal education, thank L. Kinvin Wroth (Vermont Law School) who ably chaired the AALS Government Affairs committee through this period, recognize the efforts of Kenneth J. Goldsmith of the ABA Government Affairs office, and join with the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to present awards to Senator Edward Kennedy and Representatives George Miller and John P. Sarbanes, key sponsors of the CCRAA. We could not, however, have done it without Carl, Phil, and Peter.

i. Philip G. Schrag, The Federal Income-Contingent Repayment Option For Law Student Loans, 29 Hofstra L. Rev. 733 (2001)
ii. College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, 110 P.L. 84; 121 Stat. 784; 20 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.
iii. Philip G. Schrag, Federal Student Loan Repayment Assistance for Public Interest Lawyers and Other Employees of Governments and Nonprofit Organizations, 36 Hofstra L. Rev. (forthcoming).