University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law Dean Renée McDonald Hutchins has been elected to the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).
Founded in 1900, AALS is a nonprofit association of 175 law schools with a mission to uphold and advance excellence in legal education.
Hutchins joins five other members on the Executive Committee, which also includes three officers and a chief operating officer. The committee conducts the affairs of the association outside of the annual meetings of the association’s legislative body, which elects the officers and Executive Committee members.
“I am honored to join the AALS Executive Committee and support the important work the organization is doing to improve legal education for the next generation of lawyers and policy advocates who will be front-line defenders of American democracy,” says Hutchins.
Hutchins, who began her deanship in 2022, is Maryland Carey Law’s 11th dean. She is a leading expert on the Fourth Amendment and criminal appellate practice. Her legal scholarship sits at the intersection of criminal procedure and social science. Hutchins authored the textbook Developing Professional Skills: Criminal Procedure and is co-author of the textbooks Learning Criminal Procedure and Essential Lawyering Skills.
Previous to her deanship, Hutchins was a member of the Maryland Carey Law faculty from 2004 to 2012. She became co-director of the Clinical Law Program in 2014 and was invested as the Jacob A. France Professor of Public Interest Law in 2016. From 2019 to 2022, Hutchins was dean at the University of the District of Columbia law school.