Prudenti: At Hofstra Law, looking to be ahead of the curve

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The economic impact of the Hofstra University Maurice A. Deane School of Law on our community is obvious and measurable: Through our payroll and support of local business by the institution, our 700 students and 90 faculty and administrators, Hofstra Law contributes millions of dollars annually to the local economy, far exceeding that which would be gleaned in property taxes if its campus was taxable.

Our local students spend approximately $8,500 on living expenses annually, and the students living on campus or in the community spend roughly $25,000. Many of our faculty live, and spend, locally, as does a large percentage of the non-professional staff.

That influx of capital obviously benefits businesses, and it also contributes to local government through sales taxes.

While I am pleased that Hofstra benefits my community in such a robust economic way, I am just as proud of the school’s social impact.

During their three years at Hofstra, the class of 2016 performed nearly 60,000 hours of pro bono service to the community, which comes out to 323 hours per student. In addition to gaining essential experience, our students, under the supervision of a licensed attorney or faculty member, provided free legal help to the underserved and unrepresented; assisted local, state and federal agencies and served as advocates for those unable to advocate for themselves, such as the elderly and disabled populations.

Through our clinical programs, ranging from the Asylum Clinic to the Criminal Justice Clinic to the Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property Clinical Practicum, we provide legal representation to individuals or groups who otherwise would go unrepresented. I think those programs strengthen the bedrock of our community – the family structure.

In that vein, the Center for Children, Families and the Law, which I have been privileged to run for the past 18 months, responds to the urgent need for more effective representation of children and families in crisis. Through the Center, students are afforded unique opportunities to participate in community service, public-policy projects and research – the chance to not only experience how their legal studies apply in society, but also the opportunity to truly make a difference. And that is what we are here for, and why I am here ¬-to make a difference.

As interim dean appointed on Jan. 1, I am keenly aware of my responsibilities to both the school and the community. Certainly, there are obligations to our present and future students, such as ensuring that a legal education is affordable, increasing our bar passage rate and providing an education that makes our graduates not only “marketable,” but sought after; there are obligations to our staff, such as functioning as an effective and tireless advocate for the institution as well as the professionals who make success possible; and there is an obligation to encourage and nurture cutting-edge scholarship.

But there is an equally important obligation to the community at large, including the business community: Many of our graduates stay in this area, some of them opening new law businesses.

I believe that Hofstra must concern itself not just with tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow. Hofstra has long had the foresight to stay ahead of the curve, and I intend to maintain and expand that tradition. Both in the substance of what we teach and in seeking and discovering and inventing new ways to deliver legal education, I am convinced that we must dynamically create, not merely identify, new paradigms, and never rest in the static comfort of the status quo.

I will do my best to “see around the corner” and position Hofstra for the near and distant future. I want Hofstra viewed as an innovative, ground-breaking and “cutting edge” law school, willing to do things we have never done before, or doing what we’ve always done in new, creative, forward-looking ways.

And to that end, I look for advice and counsel from our neighbors in “the real world” of commerce. Tell me what I need to know, even if—especially if—you think I don’t want to hear it.

Prudenti is the executive director and special advisor to the Dean at the Center for Children, Families and the Law of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University.