Jim Huffman: free market and laissez faire in the dean's office, 1993-2006.

• Author: Mandiberg, Susan F.
• Position: Testimonial

It is no secret that Jim Huffman is a free market, laissez-faire kind of guy. With a great sense of integrity, he brought that philosophy to bear on his thirteen-year run as dean of Lewis & Clark Law School. He spent his deanship supplying what was most demanded by our students and faculty and inspiring us to expand our vision and the diversity of our accomplishments.

A free market is, of course, the opposite of a controlled market, and Jim was a master at eschewing control. He inherited a faculty that took pride in (and stubbornly guarded) its prerogative to govern the school, and Jim's deanship brought the model of faculty governance to its apotheosis. Jim had many ideas about new directions for the law school, and often his colleagues agreed. But even when he was skeptical (or frankly opposed) to the ideas bubbling up from the faculty, Jim allowed the market to determine which initiatives would succeed, graciously adding his support and his efforts as dean to the winners. Jim nurtured the strong, collegial faculty that is one of the hallmarks of Lewis & Clark Law School.

Jim's sense of a healthy free market includes a large dose of entrepreneurial spirit. In his years as dean he not only displayed that spirit repeatedly, but also stimulated a like response in the faculty and student body. Some of the results have been in curriculum, including the growth of a vibrant intellectual property program, the blossoming and consolidation of our business law program, and the establishment of the National Crime Victim Law Institute and related course offerings. Some of the results have enhanced scholarship: the welcoming in 1994 of Animal Law (which has impressively belied the view of some skeptics that the topic should not be taken seriously), and the experiment of the Journal of Small and Emerging Business Law in 1996 and its transition to the Lewis & Clark Law Review in 2005 in response to market demands for a general topic law review. Jim's entrepreneurial spirit also enhanced opportunities for our students who enter public interest law at approximately twice the national average: the school developed a pro-bono program for students, saw dramatic growth in the ability of our Public Interest Law Project (PILP) to fund summer placements, and adopted and rapidly expanded Oregon's first Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) for graduates in public interest careers.

The modern practice of law increasingly demands law school graduates with real...