I have had a wonderful first year of Dean at Berkeley Law. I am so grateful to the warmth and kindness with which I have been welcomed by the faculty, staff, students, and alumni. I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of this wonderful law school. It has been a year of great learning for me, as I have come to know this large and complex institution.
Overall, the law school is doing very well. There is a wonderful administrative team and I am pleased that we have added to it some terrific administrators: Kristin Theis-Alvarez, as Assistant Dean for Admissions; Marva de Marothy, Director of Human Resources; Mary Matheron, Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Affairs; and Shivani Bhatia, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Dean for Finance and Budget.
We are emerging from the difficult budget situation and I am pleased that despite the campus cutting our expenditures by another $1 million for the next fiscal year, we will not need to cut any programs or have any layoffs. We are creating new revenue generating programs and planning a significant increase in our development efforts. We also are hopeful of finally being allowed to increase our tuition for the first time since 2012. This is essential to meet our increased costs in every area.
We continue to create new programs, including the Consumer Law Center (thanks to a $3.5 million gift from Elizabeth Cabraser), the Berkeley Judicial Institute, and the Civil Justice Research Institute (together with UC Irvine Law School).
The applications for our J.D. program were up significantly and we are looking forward to particularly strong J.D. and LLM classes to begin in August. It will be another year with countless lectures and symposia, which all contribute to Berkeley being the most intellectually vibrant law school that I have ever seen.
I am excited to begin my second year as dean. My top priorities are for us to do significant hiring of additional faculty members, to put us on even stronger financial footing, and to look for every opportunity to further improve this terrific law school.