From the Director
Professor Jayanth Krishnan, Milt and Judi Stewart Professor of Law
Greetings from the Stewart Center on the Global Legal Profession! It is hard to believe, but 2019 marks our 10th anniversary.
It was a decade ago, under the leadership of Professor Bill Henderson, that the Center was launched. The mission of the Center then – and still today – has been on seeking to conduct the best research on what lawyers do in the United States and across the globe. With 16 affiliated faculty, it remains one of just a small number of research centers in the United States, and the only one of its kind in the Midwest.
In addition, the Stewart Center has prioritized establishing strong relationships with leading law schools in key markets in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. And we have sent nearly 200 students abroad to work in 14 different countries as Stewart Fellow global interns in law firms, NGOs, multi-national companies, and government agencies.
As we enter our second decade, we are excited about the ongoing, as well as new, directions that we plan to pursue. We remain committed to our mission of conducting intensive research on lawyers. We are delighted to announce that the next iteration of the Stewart Fellows program will now shift to having the Law School's terrific International Programs Office administer and oversee these internships. It will work with our equally terrific Career Services Office so that students can further leverage their international professional experiences as they compete for 2L and full-time positions.
As part of our new agenda, we have projects planned for the IU Gateway Offices in Beijing and Mexico City, where two of our Stewart Center faculty – Professors Ethan Michelson and Christiana Ochoa – are the respective academic directors. New programs are also being developed for our alumni in the different countries where we work. We will look to begin an annual conference that has as its specific focus lawyering in one of the five BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). And relatedly, we plan to hold CLEs so that we are able to connect in more in-depth ways with the Indiana state bar.
Indeed, all these ideas build upon the many activities in which we have engaged over the past several years. As a recap, they have included:
- Publishing our work in highly reputed law reviews, peer-reviewed journals, academic press books, and practitioner-based outlets;
- Providing financial and research opportunities for students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to pursue their JD, LL.M., or S.J.D. at the Maurer School of Law;
- Continuing our JD/LL.B. double-degree program with the O.P. Jindal Global University (India);
- Holding symposia on comparative legal issues;
- Facilitating various teaching and research collaborations by our Stewart Center faculty with colleagues from across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America;
- Collaborating with Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession to study lawyers working in emerging economies;
- Seeing our Stewart Center faculty receive funding (outside of the law school) – totaling over $1.8 million – to conduct research or engage in programmatic initiatives involving courts, the legal profession, and legal education in the U.S. and abroad; and
- Raising over $8 million – led by the philanthropy of Milt and Judi Stewart – to endow the Center, fund a professorship, and support scholarships for global internships and other educational activities.
Clearly, the last 10 years have been busy! We look forward to our new set of exciting projects over the next decade, and we invite you to contact us if you have ideas or wish to be involved in our efforts to study the global legal profession.
Best wishes for a great 2019-2020 academic year.