Ep 023: Dan Rodriguez on Innovating Law and Legal Education

Our guest this week on LawNext is Daniel B. Rodriguez, who recently stepped down as dean of Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, where he gained wide recognition for his work to innovate legal education, and recently stepped up to become chair of the governing council of the ABA Center for Innovation, which focuses on improving the affordability, effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of legal services.

Rodriguez was dean at Northwestern Law from 2012-2018 and now serves on the school’s faculty as Harold Washington professor of law. Before joining Northwestern, Rodriguez was Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas-Austin; a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy; dean and Warren Distinguished professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law; and professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Widely recognized as a thought leader on innovation in law and legal education, Rodriguez was the 2014 president of the Association of American Law Schools and was a member of the 2014-2016 ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. He is currently a visiting professor at Stanford Law School and, in the spring semester of 2019, will be a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.  

In a wide-ranging interview, Rodriguez and host Bob Ambrogi talk about the meaning of innovation in law and at law schools and the obstacles to achieving innovation.

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