Announcing Strategic Plan 2004

On October 2, 2003, the UW Law School faculty unanimously approved a strategic plan designed to set a course for the growth and development of the Law School over the next five years. The 2004 Strategic Plan is an important step for the Law School and will help the school make critical choices about how to direct limited resources and invest the time and effort of faculty and staff. The process, which Dean Kenneth B. Davis, Jr., termed an "exciting process that brought the extended Law School community together to articulate a vision for the future," took more than two years and encouraged input from many groups with varying ideas about the Law School's priorities and future direction.

After collecting and analyzing information from two extensive surveys of recent graduates and employers, called Assessment 2000 ( http://www.law.wisc.edu/alumni/assessment2000/report.pdf or Gargoyle of Winter 2000-01), the Law School worked with a facilitator to interview members of several constituent groups, including bar leaders, faculty, staff, current students, and alumni. Dean Davis then spent several months meeting with alumni groups both in Wisconsin and in cities around the country. The result of this information gathering was a snapshot of how the many constituent groups viewed the Law School, its students, and the challenges facing legal education and the profession. This information -- along with a critical look at the Law School's strengths and weaknesses, an assessment of the factors that make Wisconsin Law "unique,"and trends in the legal profession ? provided the background information that the Law School's strategic planning group used to identify seven priorities for the coming years.

The seven priorities, listed below, provide the framework for a plan that Dean Davis believes "will help us meet the challenges of educating future lawyers and keep us in the top tier of the nation's public law schools."

While the 2004 Strategic Plan identifies specific goals for each of the priorities, it is a visionary plan, not a blueprint. Thus the Law School is currently working on a detailed operational plan to develop specific programs and initiatives for each of the priorities, set deadlines for implementation, and identify ways to reallocate or increase resources.

We look forward to having members of our extended community join us in defining and attaining the priorities of the 2004 Strategic plan. We encourage you to view the complete 2004 Strategic Plan on the Web at http://www.law.wisc.edu/shared/StrategicPlan.pdf And we look forward to sharing more information about the initiatives and programs that will help us meet our goals.

Ensure an Outstanding Student Experience

Our students deserve a comprehensive opportunity to develop the skills, knowledge, and awareness essential to achieve their professional and personal goals, and we will provide the student support services necessary to make that happen. We are committed to excellence in our teaching, yet we also appreciate that much of our students? preparation for their professional careers occurs outside of the classroom. We understand the importance of a diverse student body and will foster an intellectually challenging environment in which students with differing ideas, perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds learn from one another in a collegial and supportive atmosphere.

Re-imagine the Curriculum

Legal education is a lifetime commitment, but it is the Law School and its curriculum that provide the foundation for professionalism and all future learning. Our graduates work in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world and use their legal skills in a wide variety of settings. Their employers expect them to enter the workplace not only with excellent analytical and communication skills, but also with the judgment and maturity to assume responsibility. We are committed to preparing our graduates for the practice of law and for political leadership, public service, and community participation. We will prepare our students for the legal practice of the future, while holding true to the basic values of a traditional legal education and a law-in-action focus.

Foster a Culture of Participation and Shared Enterprise

The Law School is more than the sum of its individual parts. Students build career skills, faculty teach and pursue scholarship, clinics serve the community, and alumni participate and provide support ? and none of this happens without the work of a talented, committed, and engaged staff. All do the work of the school, but what is most essential to a thriving law school is the interaction among the school's different constituencies. The school's historic contributions, from "law in action" to "law and society," have all grown out of collective effort. We resolve to counter the inevitable pressures that lead to the separation of these functions or the isolation of individuals. Our goal is not only to ensure that the Law School is more than the sum of its parts but also to make it a place that no one wants to leave.

Anticipate Emerging Areas of Law Practice and Legal Scholarship

Lawyers are increasingly at the center of controversies created by the technological, political, and social transformations around us. Whether it is privacy in the workplace, Internet access in the library, or biotechnology on the farm, legal scholarship and law practice are central to developing the social framework for deciding complicated contemporary issues. Being an integral part of one of the country's great research universities for both the social and natural sciences, the Law School is perfectly situated to anticipate emerging areas of practice and scholarship that require an interdisciplinary approach.

Embrace the Opportunities of Globalization

Our Law School has a long tradition of international engagement. From the law and development movement to more recent aspects of globalization, our faculty members have been active abroad. They have taught, conducted research, and worked to enhance legal education and practice on every continent. The Law School will continue to promote this engagement by building on our international resources, such as our highly successful East Asian Legal Studies Center, our opportunities for foreign lawyers at the Law School, and our exchange programs with prominent law schools in Africa, Europe and Latin America. We will explore additional opportunities for faculty and students in international programs on campus and in international institutions and programs based in the United States and abroad.

Build on Our Scholarly Traditions to Create Knowledge for a Changing World

The UW Law School has long been at the leading edge of scholarly innovation and that is where we intend to remain. When most legal scholars were confining their research to the law on the books, we were looking at the law in action. And before interdisciplinary research became fashionable, we were pioneering "law and society." We will build on these traditional strengths in new and dynamic ways. We will continue to broaden our interdisciplinary connections, and we will commit the resources necessary to support a thriving culture of scholarship. We will cultivate theory that is grounded in experience, never forgetting both the local and the international dimensions of legal problems and the importance of scholarly analysis.

Advance the Wisconsin Idea

We take seriously the idea that law is a profession grounded in service to society. Our teaching aims to prepare students to serve all those who need an advocate, and our research aims to develop innovative solutions to societal problems, both at home and abroad. Our students learn through service to the community, and they do it in hospitals, low-income neighborhoods, correctional institutions, and courthouses near and far. At the Law School, the Wisconsin Idea has become the Global Idea ? the idea that we serve the university, the local community, the state, the nation, and the world.

 To see the complete Law School Strategic Plan, the Web site to visit is

http://www.law.wisc.edu/shared/StrategicPlan.pdf .

Submitted by on February 11, 2004

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