|
|
|
Burnishing a 'Diamond in the Rough'
Quinnipiac law school dean Saxton reflects on Year 1 of
what he hopes will be a long and transforming journey
|
Business New Haven
6/23/2003
By: BNH
|
On July 1, 2002, Brad Saxton became dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Law. Previously an associate dean and law professor at the University of Wyoming, Saxton comes to QU as the law school begins its 12th academic year since Quinnipiac acquired the then-University of Bridgeport School of Law in 1992. Before debarking for the West, Saxton spent six years at the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson, specializing in litigation and employment law.
What was your first year all about?
It was busy and fun and exciting. A lot of the first year was about learning - getting out and meeting alumni, representatives of the bar in the community, learning more from the students and faculty members and administrators about the issues of the school. So it was a year of a lot of meetings and visits and conversations and getting to know people.
Did you find Quinnipiac, or did they find you?
I had been out in Wyoming for ten years. But I originally am from New Jersey and my wife is from Maine. We had been in Washington, D. C. for about seven years before we moved out to Wyoming, and always thought that at some point we might come back to the Northeast or the New England area. Around the time that the [Quinnipiac] law school was looking for a dean was a time that our children had reached an age where the transition [could be managed more easily than when the children were younger]. Also, I had always sort of had an eye on Quinnipiac over the last five to ten years and was very interested in things that they were doing. It was the only deanship that I applied for - and it worked out.
What initially attracted you to academia, and what made you get off the career bandwagon at Hogan & Hartson 11 years ago?
I had been in D.C. - at first clerking for a federal judge there [Louis F. Oberdorfer, from 1985-86], and then I was in practice for about six years with Hogan & Hartson. I really liked practicing law: I enjoyed my colleagues and I liked what we were doing very much. A combination of two things [led to a career change]: one was that at that point my children were very young, and my practice was so consuming that it looked like I was going to get to spend much time with them in their early years. The other [factor] was that I always thought I wanted to teach law at some point. My father was a psychology professor, and I always liked the idea of teaching. But I didn't want to become a professor without having spent any time in practice. Initially I thought I might spend two or three years in practice and then try to teach, but when I got into practice I liked it so much that the years went by very quickly. [However,] one of the things I found a little bit frustrating about practice was that there were so many interesting issues that I got to work on, but that work was always constrained by the demands of the case or of the client. Teaching permitted the freedom and time to explore interesting legal issues that being in a demanding practice [often did not].
As dean at Quinnipiac will you have an opportunity to teach?
Yes. I taught this past spring a four-credit torts class to first-year students who started [law school] in January. It was great to be in the classroom and very refreshing - and kept reminding me of why I'm here.
You're working on a paper on honesty in lawyering. If we forego the wisecracks, will you tell us what that's about?
The basic premise of the article [is] that in some ways there's a fair amount of cynicism about lawyers in the general community, and [among] a fair number of lawyers there's a dissatisfaction with practice. I wanted to examine the perception on the part of some lawyers that the business of lawyering wither permits them or sometimes requires them to be dishonest. The specific areas I wanted to focus on were litigation practice as well as settlement negotiations. I have a very strong view in the opposite direction: I think it is possible to litigate and negotiate honestly, and I think lawyers pay a price when they buy into a view of lawyering that permits them to be dishonest.
Where does Quinnipiac stand today among the pantheon of law schools?
It's a wonderful place. We have very strong teachers, an excellent student body, and I really like the things we're doing at the school in terms of combining the core doctrinal classroom experience with skills training and more practical training. I think of it as kind of a diamond in the rough - one of those things that has not been fully discovered yet. We moved up here from Bridgeport and took on the Quinnipiac name a relatively short time ago [1992], and not as many people around the country know us as should know about us. When I get out on the road or talk to people from areas where the school is not as familiar, people are very intrigued with things that we're doing. So I see the school developing a stronger and stronger reputation - not only regionally, but nationally.
How do you measure that?
One of the things we're seeing is that the credentials of our students are getting better and better every year. This year I've heard very good things about our students from people in government, judges, other lawyers and firms where our alumni are that people seem to feel very good about the training our students have gotten here. When people talk about the law school, there's a lot of focus on the U.S. News [& World Report] rankings, which I'm not a big fan of, and which do some very damaging things in terms of people's perceptions. [Editor's note: In 2003, U.S. News ranked the QU law school in its fourth, or lowest, tier among 185 accredited law schools measured.] Many people see the rankings and make the mistake of thinking, 'Well, a school that is in the fourth tier must [give students] a fourth-tier education.' To the extent that the rankings track reputation, I think that the school will really make progress - both regionally and nationally - when more people learn about what's happening here.
What does the near- to mid-term future hold for your deanship?
In the coming academic year we're developing a new strategic plan as well as completing the materials and self-study we need to do for the re-accreditation process in 2004-05. That's a good opportunity to take a close look at what we're doing and what kinds of new program initiatives we'd like to put in place and how we get there.
Why has American society become so litigious, and will the pendulum ever swing back again?
I'm not sure where it came from, but it's a problem for our society. I view lawyers as problem-solvers, and that's what I liked about being a practicing lawyer. We have developed culturally in a way that people are so quick to think about litigating, instead of sitting down and working through problems. That loops back to the kind of training I'd like us to do here, which is training lawyers to help people solve their problems in the most efficient and community-oriented way possible.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
