Ep 115: BYU Law Dean Gordon Smith On His Second Term

<p><a href= "https://law.byu.edu/faculty/d-gordon-smith/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Gordon Smith</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">has just been appointed to a second five-year term as dean of the</span> <a href= "https://law.byu.edu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">J. Reuben Clark Law School</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">at Brigham Young University. Two years after becoming dean in 2016, he</span> <a href= "https://abovethelaw.com/2018/03/how-does-a-law-school-innovate-mulling-that-question-at-byu-law/"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">told an audience of law school advisors</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, “I want BYU to be known as, if not the most innovative law school in the country, then one of the most innovative law schools in the country.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As we recounted when Smith was</span> <a href= "https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/03/lawnext-episode-31-byu-law-dean-gordon-smith-on-law-school-innovation.html"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">first on LawNext</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">in 2019, he has worked hard to make that vision a reality, launching the nationally recognized</span> <a href="https://www.lawsitesblog.com/tag/lawx"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">LawX</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">legal design lab, developing courses to teach non-traditional skills such as leadership, storytelling, and business ethics, launching clinical programs around unique skills such as entrepreneurship and conflict resolution; and spearheading development of the</span> <a href= "https://lcl.byu.edu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Law and Corpus Linguistics</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">project.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But much has changed in law and legal education since 2019, due predominantly to the pandemic and its impact on how law is taught, how lawyers are licensed, and how legal services are delivered. So as Smith begins his second term as dean, we check in on how t