Dedman School of Law
(2010 Graduate Catalog)
A Message From The Dean
I hope this catalog will give you some idea of the quality, richness and excitement of a legal education at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. With a student body of deliberately controlled size, a faculty with superb credentials and excellent physical facilities, the School of Law seeks to give each student a personal educational experience of the highest order. In addition to the full-time day and part-time evening J.D. programs, the School of Law has some of the oldest and most outstanding graduate legal programs in the country, including a Master of Laws in taxation, a Master of Laws in comparative and international law, a General Master of Laws, and a Doctor of the Science of Law. We also offer joint degree programs with other colleges in the University, including the J.D./M.B.A. program with the SMU Cox School of Business.
As you will see in the following pages, the school has a diverse and highly talented faculty whose members are dedicated to teaching. Not only do they hold outstanding academic credentials, but virtually all of them also have had practical experience before entering their teaching careers. Consequently, they provide the invaluable link between the theory of classroom instruction and the reality of legal practice. The School of Law enjoys a national and international reputation, with its graduates practicing in every state in the union and in many foreign countries.
We take pride in offering our students a total educational experience. Students have the opportunity to participate in five respected law journals; a summer program in Oxford, England; and six legal clinics, including one of the very few in taxation. While our curriculum is extremely rich, we are still small enough to take a personal interest in each student. The school’s Law Quadrangle provides an admirable setting for learning and includes the Underwood Law Library, a modern and comprehensive research facility equipped with state-of-the-art instructional technologies. Our Office of Career Services sponsors numerous programs throughout the year, including on-campus interview programs and off-campus job fairs, seminars, and workshops to provide a broad range of employment opportunities.
Our student body is diverse, intelligent and inquisitive. Students come from a variety of backgrounds and from all over the United States, although the majority is from Texas and surrounding regions. The student body is enriched by the addition of students from many other countries who participate in the graduate legal programs. Upon graduation, they enter private practice, government practice and the corporate sector, or they engage in public interest work, serve as prosecutors or obtain judicial clerkships.
I hope that you will have an opportunity to visit our campus. Such an experience will give you a real sense of the school in a way that the pages of a catalog can only suggest. We wish you the best of luck in your legal career.
John B. Attanasio
Judge James Noel Dean
and
Professor of Law
and William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law
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