Professor Carol Suzuki Leads AALS Clinical Education Section
July 15, 2009
Professor Carol Suzuki has been elected chair of the Association of American Law School’s Section on Clinical Legal Education for 2009. She is the second member of the UNM law faculty to hold the national position, after Professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez in 2000.
For the next year, she will preside over the section and its executive committee. The organizational structure of the section includes 17 subcommittees, which conduct their activities on a national level. Through the subcommittees, the section supports national and regional training conferences and workshops, promotes clinical scholarship, mentors clinicians of color and lawyers entering the legal education profession, advances innovations in collaborative teaching and technology and encourages social justice projects.
UNM law faculty members regularly participate in the section’s annual clinical conference as panel speakers, session presenters and group facilitators. The section’s awards committee recognized Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs Michael Norwood in 2005 with the William Pincus Award for his outstanding contributions to clinical education.
Suzuki, who joined the UNM law faculty in 2003, looks forward to furthering collaborative projects among clinical educators and improving the status of clinicians in law schools on a national level.
“I am honored to have been elected as chair of the section by my clinical colleagues," says Suzuki. "This responsibility allows me the opportunity to work with clinicians across the country to promote clinical teaching as a means to better prepare law students to become ethical and competent lawyers and provide legal services to meet the needs of underserved communities.”
This past year, she earned tenure at the UNM School of Law.
