MSU Law College Active in ABA Associate Deans Conference

Michigan State University College of Law administrators had prominent roles in the recent American Bar Association (ABA) Associate Deans Conference held on July 11-13 in Chicago. Titled “Anything, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” the annual event drew associate deans and other senior leaders from ABA-accredited law schools from around the country.

Representing MSU College of Law were Professor Michael Sant’Ambrogio, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs; Frank Aiello, Chief of Staff; and Dennis Kennedy, Director for the Center for Law, Technology, and Innovation. Chairing the ABA Conference was MSU Law College’s Professor Sant’Ambrogio, who also led, moderated, and participated in a number of panels. In addition, Professor Sant’Ambrogio spoke to Conference attendees on preparing for the site visit.

“It was great to see the leadership role Dean Sant’Ambrogio fulfilled as chair of the conference. And, it was good to see the MSU law school playing an important role in leading best practices in legal education,” Mr. Aiello said.

During a session on crisis management, Mr. Aiello and Mr. Sant’Ambrogio discussed the law school’s role in response to the campus mass shooting on February 13 that took the lives of three MSU students and injured five others. “As law school leaders, we discussed what we had to think through and how we could be better prepared in the future,” said Mr. Aiello, who, along with Professor Sant’Ambrogio, took part in this session.

Professor Kennedy participated on a Q&A panel discussing the growing topic of artificial intelligence (AI), “Legal Education in the Age of Generative AI.” He says that as AI grows in popularity across all professions and content creation, many attorneys have questions about how this is going to change the way the law is viewed.

“The hype on AI in law is so extreme these days that we are likely to see a dive of disappointment as people learn what AI can and cannot do realistically,” Professor Kennedy said. “We need to learn when it makes sense to use AI and when it does not.” Professor Kennedy went on to share that, “The session was designed to introduce and discuss the issues raised by the rapid increase of AI use in the legal profession. There is so much happening so quickly that we decided to turn the session into a Q&A session to cover the topics of most interest to the attendees. That approach worked very well and the session was well-attended and well-received.”

Aside from educating attendees on AI, Professor Kennedy says he gained a better sense of the day-to-day for leadership in the Law College and how to better collaborate in the future. “The conference opened a window on the world of associate deans, something I was not familiar with,” he said. “I have a much better idea of what their roles are, the challenges they face, and ways that I might better work with them and help them. It was enlightening to learn from the perspectives of associate deans and find out about their concerns and issues and the many practical challenges they face.”