News

Excited to Build Our Next Chapter Together

August 02, 2021

I am very honored to join the Northwestern Pritzker Law community as your new dean and excited for all that we will create together. This is an extraordinary law school and community. We have the opportunity at this time of change to build on our strengths and develop an innovative next chapter.

Please join me in thanking Interim Dean Jim Speta for his wonderful leadership of the law school during a very challenging year.  His leadership has made and continues to make an important difference and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with him.

I plan to have four areas of focus in the coming weeks. 

1. Getting to Know Our Community

I am looking forward to continuing to get to know our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. I want to hear your perspectives on our challenges and opportunities and to develop pathways forward together. We are setting up informal and formal opportunities for connection, listening sessions, and office hours. 

2. Return to Campus

Returning to campus will be a major transition that we will need to continue to work through together. We are working closely with the University as our public health crisis evolves and will keep everyone updated on any policy changes.

3. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

I am committed to continuing to advance our efforts on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I plan to create informal and formal opportunities for people to share what is going well and where we have work to do. We will then develop additional concrete action grounded in that listening that we begin implementing this semester. Our search for our next Associate Dean for Inclusion and Engagement is a top priority for this Fall. We are in the process of selecting a search firm and plan to have an inclusive process to framing the search and selecting this important leader. 

4. Learning from Our Pivots and Innovating

The pivots of this past year against the backdrop of a rapidly changing society and profession provide us with an opportunity to reflect and innovate. To help us think through these opportunities, I am establishing a working group on Lessons Learned and Innovation Opportunities that will include faculty, students, staff, and alumni. I also am creating a new faculty Associate Dean of Innovation and Partnerships who will partner with the dean, senior leadership team, faculty, staff, and alumni to support and expand existing collaborations and build new ones across Northwestern and with external partners.   

I am so grateful for the warm welcome and look forward to collaborating with all of you to make a difference.

Best,
Hari Osofsky