Dean’s Message

With Gratitude

We find ourselves in an exciting time at Northeastern Law. For this, we owe immense gratitude to each member of our diverse and energized community. The wide range of questions posed by a complex, interconnected world require multidisciplinary and unbounded solutions that positively impact people and communities. This is the foundational concept of Northeastern University’s academic plan, Experience Unleashed, launched in 2021, which articulates a transformative vision for learning and discovery in an age of intersecting contexts, challenges and opportunities — exemplified by the stories in this issue of our magazine.

To support our vision, we are following through with Experience Powered by Northeastern, the most ambitious fundraising campaign in the university’s history. Experience Unleashed is the roadmap, and philanthropy provides the fuel to turn this vision into reality.

We are deeply grateful that so many of you have chosen to join us on this journey. I am pleased to report that, thanks to our generous donors, who give at every level, our law school is setting new fundraising records. Thus far, gifts to Northeastern Law during the Experience campaign collectively total approximately $25 million.

Your support opens doors for talented students, faculty and staff to create positive change. For example, Northeastern Law now has three endowed scholarships for first-generation students, featured in the following pages. Additionally, thanks to more than 100 graduates who participated in the Million Thanks for Dan Givelber tribute, the Givelber-Subrin Public Interest Law Co-op Fund, supporting students who accept unpaid and low-paying public interest co-ops, has increased from $500,000 to $1 million — giving us the ability to send more students to communities and organizations that can benefit from their legal training.

At our Centers of Excellence, donors who provide resources for the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at the Center for Law, Equity and Race are supporting the creation of a federal reparations program for descendants of victims of historic homicidal racial violence. Notably, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a founding philanthropic partner of the Center for Health Policy and Law’s Salus Populi program, recently made a generous $1 million commitment to expand this innovative training program, which educates judges and lawyers across the country about how the social determinants of health affect the people appearing before them.

James Hackney Dean and Professor of Law

James Hackney

Dean and Professor of Law

All of this is made possible because of you. Our donors make annual gifts, support the law school on Giving Day, create new scholarships, make special gifts in honor of reunion and include the law school in their estate plans. In whichever way you choose to give back, your contribution makes a difference. In closing, I want to underscore the retirements of longtime faculty members David Phillips and Brook Baker ’76, featured in this magazine. David and Brook have been instrumental in building community and educating public interest advocates and leaders throughout the legal profession. We wish them the very best.

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