Update on the results of negotiations during the Spring Quarter.

As a result of the student efforts in working with law school faculty this past Spring, the Governing Council of NUSL passed an amendment to the Interim Charter that reflected negotiated changes to the faculty appointments process. As everyone in the room knew, the vote on the amendment was purely symbolic because the law school is not hiring any faculty next year. The students knew this would be the case going into the meeting, but our hope is that the amendment, which satisfactorily addresses the students' principle concern by giving student representatives a meaningful voice in the appointments decision-making process and which received a favorable vote, will serve as a solid basis for future negotiations and thus we as a community would not have to go back to the drawing board when we revisit the issue in the Fall.

The Council also voted to extend the Interim Charter, which was set to expire after this past year, for the next academic year to allow more discussion on other substantive issues that effect the drafting of the new Charter (e.g., the role of CAIR under the new Charter arose as a major issue that needs to be addressed). The discussions about drafting a new law school charter are on hiatus for the Summer. When the Fall arrives, it is my hope that the students can meet with faculty members who have the remit and authority to speak for the entire faculty. The most frustrating part of the process this Spring is that countless student hours were spent trying to hammer out an agreement with faculty on an ad hoc committee who actually were not able to speak for the faculty members who would ultimately vote on the ad hoc committee's recommendations. So though the participation of those faculty members was invaluable in providing students a view into the minds of faculty, the progress was perhaps slower and less fruitful than initially expected. Chalk it up to experience learned.

As for my part as co-chair, I will return in the Fall hoping to drum up some interest in this issue. First year students played a big role in the process last year, and hopefully will again this coming year.

Law School Charter - General Background

In 2008, the governing council of the law school passed an amendment to the charter, which made law school governance more flexible. The old version of the charter proved to be unwieldy. It required that all decisions be voted on in the governing council. This caused significant delays in each committee's ability to make decisions. The amendment attempted to alleviate some of these delays by making the committees more flexible.

A copy of the law school charter is available here: NUSL Charter 2008

Unfortunately, the amendment also caused several problems within the committees. Relevant to us, the amendment allowed for some committees to ignore the student voice. Committee chairs could decide whether the students could vote on its decisions.

In May 2010, the law school charter will revert to the old version. Before this happens, the SBA and several interested students are working together to help draft a new law school charter. Our goals are to create a law school governance structure which includes students in the decision-making processes. We want to ensure that the goals of governance and the committee structures are defined in such a way to make sure that our elected leaders have a voice in law school governance.

We will use this blog to ensure that all of our decisions regarding law school governance are transparent. We encourage you to use this page to check up on the activities of the student committee responsible for discussing how we define our role in the law school. Please feel free to comment on any of these posts. We want your suggestions, as students of the law school. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible so we can include everyone in this process.