A Message From Dean Johnson

05/28/2019

Dear SLU LAW alumni,

Each academic year delivers a variety of success stories, whether of individual students or the institution as a whole. This year has certainly been no exception. I am incredibly proud of what our students and this institution have accomplished this year and am pleased to share a few of these success stories with you.

SLU LAW graduates consistently do well on the bar exam. We recently learned the results of the February bar exam, and SLU LAW graduates passed the February bar exam in Missouri at a higher rate than any other law school in the state, with a 90% first-time test taker bar passage rate. Our graduates’ success is even more impressive when considering the state’s declining overall passage rate of 70%.

This spring three students successfully argued precedent-setting cases before the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. 3L Rose Tanner successfully argued that her client had good cause to resign from her job and was therefore eligible for benefits. And 3L Thomas Herring and 4L Sean Oliveira successfully argued a case that opens the door for more Missouri employees of out-of-state nonprofits to receive unemployment benefits upon losing their employment through no fault of their own. Together with 3L Josh Watts, Sean Oliveira was also part of the client counseling team that won their regional competition and earned the right to compete nationally in Waco, Texas. These success stories are just some of the many terrific achievements our students had outside the classroom this year.

As a school, we earned national recognition this year for both the Center for Health Law Studies and the William C. Wefel Center for Employment Law. SLU LAW’s health law program was once again named the number one program in the specialty rankings by U.S. News and World Report for the 15th year, outranking Harvard, Yale and Boston University. Though it is not a specialty ranked by U.S. News, our employment law program was recognized as one of the top three programs in the nation by Pre-Law Magazine, which specifically noted another success story, the Center’s recent selection as the editorial home for the ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law.

I am also pleased to report two new hires to our faculty. Lauren Bartlett will join our legal clinics faculty from Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law. She will form a Human Rights at Home Clinic. Belinda Dantley (‘13) has just joined our faculty as the director of inclusion and diversity education. Both women are impressive.

And numerous other positive things have happened this year. In short, it has been a very good year.

Wishing you the very best this summer,

William P. Johnson
Dean and Professor
School of Law