The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), formed in 1900, is a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

of 176

law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. An additional 19 schools pay a fee to receive services but are not members. AALS incorporated as a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

non-profit educational organization in 1971. The association is a member of both the

American Council on Education The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,700 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher education ...

and the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

History

In August 1905, a new quarterly law publication was announced in the annual meeting held in

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

Henry Wade Rogers Henry Wade Rogers (October 15, 1853 – August 16, 1926) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Education and career Born on October 10, 1853, in Holland Patent, New York, Rogers receiv ...

, dean of

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

served as the president and 25 law schools were represented.

Leadership

Erwin Chemerinsky Erwin Chemerinsky (born May 14, 1953) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of United States constitutional law and federal civil procedure. Since 2017, Chemerinsky has been the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. Previously, he a ...

, dean of

University of California, Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...

, became president of AALS on January 8, 2022. The president-elect is Mark Alexander, dean of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, and Vincent D. Rougeau, president of the College of the Holy Cross, is the immediate past president. Judith Areen became executive director and chief executive officer of AALS in February 2014. Prior to coming to AALS, Areen was on the faculty of

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

where she served as dean from 1989 to 2004 and as interim dean in 2010.

Meetings

AALS hosts a number of events throughout the year. The AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education is the association's second largest conference with the 2015 conference having approximately 700 clinicians in attendance. The conference's sessions focus on practice areas and common areas of concern for clinicians.

Involvement in the Solomon Amendment

The AALS requires its members to follow a nondiscrimination policy regarding "race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation," and for member law schools to require this of any employer to which it gives access for recruitment. The

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

don't ask, don't tell "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on December ...

" (DADT) policy was seen by the AALS as impermissible discrimination. However, the AALS excused its members from blocking access to the military since the passage of the

Solomon Amendment The term Solomon Amendment has been applied to several provisions of U.S. law originally sponsored by U.S. Representative Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-NY). The 1982 Solomon Amendment was an amendment to a Federal education bill that made compliance wit ...

, which denies federal funding to the parent university of a law school as well as the school itself if military recruiters are not given full campus access. However, the AALS at the time required schools to take "ameliorative" measures when allowing military recruiters on campus, including placing "warning" signs on campus when military recruiting takes place, scheduling interviews off campus away from "core" areas, "prohibit ngentirely the delivery of discretionary support services" to military recruiters, charging military employers who use law school resources "reasonable fees for use of law school staff, facilities and services," etc. The AALS at the time encouraged law schools to deny benefits to military recruiters that they would ordinarily provide employers, such as coffee and free parking. Specifically, the AALS wrote in a memo to all law school deans in the United States: The AALS engaged in litigation challenging the Solomon Amendment as violative of the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

(see e.g., ''

Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. ''Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc.'', 547 U.S. 47 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the federal government, under the Solomon Amendment, could constitutionally withhold fundin ...

''). In an interesting coincidence, The Judge Advocate General's School of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

is a fee-paying nonmember of AALS. Although DADT has been ended, and although President Barack Obama called upon college campuses to welcome military recruiters during his 2011 State of the Union address, some law professors have questioned why the AALS has issued no statement declaring an end to its recommendations.DADT Repeal and On-Campus Military Recruiters, PrawfsBlawg, December 24, 2010, http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2010/12/dadt-repeal-and-on-campus-military-recruiters.html

References

External links