CARLISLE, Pa. — Penn State Dickinson Law Dean and Donald J. Farage Professor of Law Danielle M. Conway has been voted 2025 president-elect of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the nonprofit whose member schools enroll most of the country’s law students and produce the majority of the country’s attorneys and judges. Her election follows time spent on the AALS Executive Committee and AALS Steering Committee.
“I have aspired to serve as AALS president for 10 years, beginning years ago when I was selected to serve on the Steering Committee,” Conway said. “My ongoing support of and strong relationship with AALS has helped provide me with a platform for much of the work we are doing now at Penn State Dickinson Law.”
AALS presidents serve for one year. Each leader develops a theme for their term, and Conway will introduce hers later this year. As president-elect, Conway will support the incoming president and the greater association, as well as serve once again on the Executive and Steering committees.
“I applaud Dean Conway for achieving the high honor of being voted president-elect of AALS,” said Penn State Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Tracy Langkilde. “Through her contributions to the field of legal education, she has demonstrated to the community of legal educators and law-affiliated organizations that she is a trusted resource. We appreciate her leadership and dedication to the faculty, staff, alumni, and students at Penn State Dickinson Law.”
Achieving a Penn State first
Conway’s election marks the first time a dean from Penn State Dickinson Law or any Penn State academic leader has been elevated to an executive leadership position within AALS. It comes after Conway led efforts to reunify Penn State’s two law schools, now known as Penn State Dickinson Law, which recently earned American Bar Association approval.
She has risen steadily through the ranks of the leadership of the legal academy while earning recognition for her scholarly agenda and speeches advocating for public education and actualizing the rights of marginalized groups, including Indigenous Peoples, minoritized people and groups, and members of rural communities.
Throughout her career, Conway has focused on inclusion within the legal academy and the legal profession. Part of her motivation has been that early on in her career she did not always feel included.
“For too long, especially during the beginning of my career, I never felt like part of the legal academy. I always felt like I was on the fringe. I held a legal writing and research instructor position, and at that time, we were called instructors. We were not professors,” Conway said.
In the more than 30 years since Conway earned that first position within the legal academy, she has championed inclusivity as a core value to help everyone in the profession feel seen and appreciated. She practiced this ethos during her 14 years on the faculty of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law and later as dean of the University of Maine School of Law for four years, and she has continued the practice at Penn State Dickinson Law since 2019.
Now, she has a new opportunity to scale this inclusive ethos.
Conway received bachelor of science degrees in finance and international business from New York University Stern School of Business; a juris doctor degree, cum laude, from Howard University School of Law; and a master of laws degree in government procurement law and environmental law from George Washington University Law School. Conway served as a full-time lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and as a member of the faculty of the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law before serving on the faculty of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law. She also is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
In 2016, she retired from the U.S. Army after 27 years of combined active, reserve and national guard service. She has authored or edited six books and casebooks, as well as numerous book chapters, articles and essays.
In 2020, Conway was a co-recipient of the inaugural AALS Impact Award, which honors individuals or groups who have had a significant positive impact on legal education or the legal profession. She and four Black women law dean colleagues were recognized for creating the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project, a webpage for law deans, faculty and staff, and the public providing resources and information to encourage and support action by individuals and organizations to dismantle structures supporting systemic racial inequality in law and legal education.
In 2021, Conway launched the Antiracist Development Institute at Penn State Dickinson Law, which also aims to dismantle structures that scaffold systemic racial inequality using a three-pillar approach based on systems design, institutional antiracism, and critical pedagogy.
Conway said she credits the many mentors throughout her career who aided in developing her leadership skills.
“All these people helped develop what you see in me now. Without examples of both leadership successes and deficits, you would not know what works and what does not,” Conway said. “From their examples, I have built an effective framework for leadership that is based on experience, practice, theory and heart.”
Looking toward the future
Austen Parrish, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, will serve as AALS president in 2025, succeeding Melanie D. Wilson, dean and Roy L. Steinheimer, Jr., Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law.
His presidential theme will examine the far-reaching impact of legal education — appropriate given that AALS celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2025. Parrish plans to highlight the changes and innovations in legal education over the past decades, as well as the contributions made by schools, their faculty, and their staff to the local communities, the nation, and the world that the schools serve.
“The time as president-elect offers a fabulous opportunity to work with leaders within the legal academy and the profession, and to connect with those really leading the charge on new and exciting ideas,” Parrish said. “Dean Conway is a fantastic choice to take on this leadership role and will be a tremendous officer of the association. I am certain it will be a whirlwind year, but I am looking forward to working together. I am eager to see how she develops her own theme and have no doubt that she will serve an inspiring term.”
Conway said she is eager to begin her new duties.
“I always viewed the potential to become a leader in AALS as an opportunity to engage the association in practices that encourage even greater inclusiveness between and among its member schools and the individuals within those schools,” Conway said. “That is also very consistent with the ethos of Penn State Dickinson Law and how we have grown our reputation as a law school that practices a culture of equity, inclusiveness and antiracism.”