Last week, I completed my first year at Texas A&M University, as dean of Texas A&M University School of Law. While every job has its challenges – and its moments – I count myself lucky to have landed at an institution that’s a perfect fit with what I’ve long seen as the critical requirements for a great deanship. As Dan Rodriguez reminded me as I weighed the offer from Texas A&M University, my question has always been whether a school has both the will and the capacity to move to the next level in its development – and whether something in my background might enable me to help it get there. I’m not the right person to judge the latter, but I can honestly say that I’ve seen no law school that better fits the rest of that test than Texas A&M University School of Law.

Texas A&M University, my Texas A&M University School of Law colleagues, our former students, and the entire community – of Fort Worth City Hall (City of Fort Worth), North Texas, and Texas as a whole could not be more deeply committed to the success of the law school. The necessary will is thus definitely there.

As to capacity, meanwhile, at the intersection of Texas A&M University's strong support for Texas A&M University School of Law (in every respect), the excellence of our faculty (in every respect) and its shared aspirations for the our onward advance, and a great location (in myriad respects), the sky’s the limit.

Beyond those fundamentals, though, there are three reasons I can say I truly love my job at Texas A&M University School of Law. The first is the “building” project it entails. For many an academic administrator, the job is basically to maintain the status quo. Quite to the contrary in my case. Closer to the mark might be a “What have you done for me lately?” model. As a university, Texas A&M University constantly asks some version of the question: What can we do differently today, to be better tomorrow? Never boring, that mindset makes for a pretty exciting environment to be dean.

A second reason I love my job – perhaps oddly for some who know me – is that it’s in Texas. If you’d told me a year ago how much I would know about football – as we come into the fall with a top 10 ranking in our commits for next year – I’d say you were thinking of someone else. If you told me a year ago that I’d have attended a rodeo, I would have laughed. Let alone that I’d have gone seven times. And even ridden a horse in one! (If anyone needs to know where to get cowboy boots or a hat, by the way, call me anytime.) All of that, though, has made my job as dean that much more interesting – and engaging. Sure, I go to lots of meetings, like every dean. But wearing a cowboy hat to some of them makes all the difference.

Finally – and most importantly – I love my job because of the good fortune of having colleagues who are deeply committed to the scholarly project, to our students, and to the goal of moving the law school forward. I’m not sure I have known a group more open to new ideas and more willing to give them a chance. As often as not in legal education today, we don’t know the answers. But if we bring to our efforts an experimentalist mindset – giving things a try, seeing how they go, and adjusting accordingly – the sky (once again) is the limit. I’m lucky to be surrounded by colleagues who think just that way.

So, that’s my end-of-year report as dean of Texas A&M University School of Law.

In sum: It’s been a blast!

TAMU Law Professor Guillermo Garcia-Sanchez presented his research on international energy dispute resolution at the Mexican National Hydrocarbons Commission in late May.

Sixteen former Texas A&M University visualization students helped bring back to life some of cinema’s most beloved characters in “Toy Story 4,” the latest installment in the hit animated movie series, which opens Thursday, June 20, 2019. 

Earlier this spring, the Center for Law and Intellectual Property at Texas A&M University School of Law devoted its annual symposium to commemorating the silver anniversary of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Taylor Anderson joined Cantey Hanger LLP as a partner in the Dallas office. He will practice within the firm’s Litigation Section and has an active trial practice in the areas of commercial, real estate and title insurance.

Texas A&M University School of Law Associate Professor Dr. Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez expands Aggie Law's global reach in international oil and gas research, dispute resolution, arbitration and natural resources during a June 2019 research trip in Europe. Through his efforts, Texas A&M Law students and faculty have new opportunities to collaborate with leading European academic institutions.

Professor Peter K. Yu spoke at the Conference on Intellectual Property and Development at the World Intellectual Property Organization and a policy seminar at the World Trade Organization. He also discussed the U.S.-China trade policy at the University of Oxford.

Texas A&M University School of Law has placed in the top 10 in the American Bar Association's 2018-19 “ABA Competitions Championship.”

Texas A&M University School of Law is pleased to announce that Professor Huyen Pham and her co-principal investigator, Van Pham of Baylor University, have received a $35,000 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to fund their research project, “The Spillover Effects of 287(g) Agreements on State Trooper Policing.”