North Carolina Central News September 07, 2010 American Bar Association Elects Law School Dean to Legal Education Council Raymond Pierce, dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law, has been elected to a seat on the American Bar Association's Council of the Section of the Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. This 23-member council is the national accrediting agency for programs leading to a law degree. Pierce is one of two law school deans newly-elected to serve on the council. Maureen O'Rourke, dean of the Boston University School of Law, is also a member. Others on the panel include Rebecca White Berch, chief justice of Arizona Supreme Court, practicing attorneys and members of the judiciary. Pierce has been dean of the NCCU School of Law since 2005. Under his leadership the law school has seen the largest student enrollment in its history, inclusion on the Princeton Review List of Top Law Schools and a No. 1 ranking as the nation's "best value" law school from National Jurist pre-law magazine, a rating based on bar passage rate, job placement and affordability. Pierce has overseen the establishment of a Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Law Institute, a Dispute Resolution Institute and a Veterans Law Clinic, which has received national recognition for providing legal assistance to U.S. service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Before coming to NCCU, Pierce was a partner in the national law firm of Baker & Hostetler in Cleveland, Ohio. From 1993 to 2000, he served as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, where he managed the enforcement of federal civil rights laws in education and the development of federal civil rights education policy. He received his bachelor's degree in 1980 from Syracuse University and his law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He currently serves on the North Carolina Banking Commission, the North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, the Board of Directors of the American Law Deans Association, the National Association of Law Placement Foundation, and the Executive Board of Duke University’s Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org www.hbculibraries.org 404.592.4820 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/meeting-form.html for the October 24-26, 2010 HBCU Library Alliance 4th Membership Meeting and the "Conference on Advocacy" pre-conference in Montgomery, AL. The Pre-Conference and Membership meeting are open to directors and other librarians.