Dean Greene named to ABA Policing and Public Safety Consortium

The American Bar Association (ABA) selected Dean Linda Sheryl Greene to serve on a national Advisory Committee focused on understanding and addressing legal issues in policing. The Legal Education Police Practices Consortium Advisory Committee is comprised of a director and nine deans from participating law schools across the country.

The mission of the Consortium, highlighted on the website, is a “collaboration between member law schools and the ABA to advance the practice of policing, promote racial equity in the criminal legal system, and eliminate policing tactics that are racially motivated or have a disparate impact based on race. Our work recognizes that national progress is most likely advanced through state and local reforms, and we focus on coordinating and amplifying these efforts.”

“MSU College of Law has been given a unique opportunity to increase our involvement in the dialogue surrounding policing and public safety and to impact the implementation of effective changes,” said Dean Greene. “It is an honor to have been selected by other college deans across the U.S. to serve on this committee.”

The Consortium, according to the website, “was established in 2020 by the ABA and law schools across the country to jointly address issues relating to policing and public safety within their respective communities. Law school deans came together with the goal of ensuring that the lawyers of tomorrow had access to the necessary policies, procedures, and understanding to aid their ability to build a more just, humane, and equitable criminal legal system. They determined that additional progress would be possible if they worked together in a collaborative effort, rather than operating independently.”

Comprised of 60-member law schools, the Consortium “actively contributes to the national efforts examining and addressing legal issues in policing and public safety.” It partners with key stakeholders to advance policies, practices, and training materials. The Consortium hosts a fellowship program, offers the development of law of the police and police practices courses for use in member schools, and is creating a “law of the police legal scholar database.”

An active voice in the national conversation about policing and public safety, Dean Greene convened a comprehensive discussion of racialized policing during an annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in January 2015. When a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, Dean Greene served as moderator of the panel entitled “Beyond Michael Brown and Ferguson, Effective Responses to Police Force.”