The admissions committee reviews applications for admission and makes admission decisions designed to produce a class of talented, motivated students from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Each member, including the student members, reads application files each week and reports back to the committee with recommendations as to admission, denial, or holding an applicant for later review. Members of the committee are asked to participate in various recruiting events such as contacting admitted students, attending a reception with alumni, and/or helping with the Law School Preview. The committee begins meeting in January and meets weekly through the Spring semester.

The Alumni Board of Directors mission is to strengthen the connections between Law Alumni, the Law School and Law Students through a variety of outreach activities and events and encourage Law Alumni to remain involved in the continued success of the Law School. The Alumni Board provides on-going input and support of the many programs and services administered by Lewis & Clark Law School. The board meets three times a year and conducts much of its business through the work of the Alumni Engagement, Distinguished Honors, Governance, and Scholarship Committees.

The budget committee reviews the administration’s budget proposal and submits a proposed budget to the law school faculty for its approval, after which it is submitted to the Board of Trustees. There are intensive meetings in the fall semester at which the committee determines what programs will be supported at what level, whether the number of faculty will be expanded, what should be the tuition, how much should be expended on scholarships, how much should be expended on faculty research, what size class the admissions committee is to attempt to recruit, and all other aspects of revenue and expenditure that make up the law school budget. Programs that are supported by outside grants (examples are the Small Business Legal Clinic, Animal law Clinic, Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, and others) are reviewed to the extent that the law school makes in-kind or actual revenue contributions to the program. In normal years, the work of the committee is concluded in the fall semester but may extend into the Spring.

The curriculum committee determines the courses for the upcoming academic year, including the next summer’s classes. The committee reviews proposals for new courses and reviews enrollments to see what courses need additional sections or should be offered less often. The committee also takes up specific projects from time to time such as reviewing the first year curriculum, establishing summer externships, and providing guidance for the law school’s various Legal clinics(examples are the Animal law Clinic, Small Business Clinic, and the Lewis & Clark legal Clinic. The curriculum committee’s decisions go to the full faculty as recommendations to be voted upon by the faculty. The committee meets throughout the year, usually twice a month.

The Diversity Committee seeks to promote diversity throughout the law school among students, staff, and faculty. The committee looks at a variety of issues each year and in the past has surveyed students, held focus groups, drafted policies and procedures, organized faculty workshops, and pursued research on creating a classroom environment that is inclusive at the same time it is academically challenging. The committee advises other law school committees and administrators and can make recommendations to the full faculty for implementation by the school. The committee meets three or four times a semester, depending on the issues it is considering. It coordinates its efforts with those of the institutional wide committee on diversity, which is described on the Diversity Committee website.

In any year when the law school is hiring new faculty, the committee reviews applications, determines who will be interviewed at the annual AALS hiring conference in Washington DC (held in Oct/Nov), interviews candidates in DC, determines who will be invited back to the law school for full interviews and job talks, and recommends to the full faculty those candidates it feels should be considered for offers of employment. Students participate fully in the review of applications; one of the two travels to Washington DC for the interviews; and both are responsible for ensuring student attendance at job talks and student interview sessions. Students participate in all discussion and votes on who to interview and who to recommend to the faculty for hiring. This committee is most active in the Fall, with some work continuing into the early part of the Spring semester.

Students who are elected to serve on the Faculty Committee attend faculty meetings, typically once a month on the second Tuesday of each month, throughout the year. The faculty vote on recommendations from the other committees, such as budget and curriculum, campus policies and procedures and on issues raised by individual faculty members. Students have full voting rights in the faculty meetings except for matters of tenure and promotion of faculty. Faculty meetings are often attended by staff as well as faculty; however, only full-time faculty have voting rights in the faculty meetings.

Each pod of the 1st year class elects a representative. They are in charge of communicating their pod’s concerns to the SBA, organizing social and academic events for their pod, and helping their fellow first year students through the difficult initial year at Lewis and Clark law school. The pod representatives are official members of the SBA and sit upon and attend internal SBA committee meetings. Pod representatives are elected in the fall. There are a total of six SBA pod representatives.

ITSAC provides advice and guidance to the Chief Technology officer and the Executive Council regarding strategic directions and issues in the areas of information and instructional technologies for the institution. Responsibilities include identification, investigation, discussion and recommendation for strategic initiatives for the institution; serve as a bidirectional communication channel with the various constituents (faculty, staff, students, alumni, etc.) about strategic issues; engage the community in participatory decision making for technology initiatives; review and recommend institutional information technology policies; and prioritize IT projects for budget planning and human resource allocation. The membership of ITSAC consists of the Chief Technology Officer, Provost and Vice President, Vice President for Finance, the Deans (or designate) of the three schools, the heads of both the Boley Law Library and the Watzek Library and a student representative from each school. ITSAC meets two to three times a semester.

The committee reviews the natural resources and environmental law curriculum and recommends the courses for continuation and new courses for consideration by the curriculum committee. The committee also reviews all environmental and natural resources courses for the three-year plan, and recommends to the curriculum committee courses for continuation and how frequently the courses should be taught. The committee designs and approves conferences, distinguished environmental visitors, and other official activities to be undertaken by the law school as part of the environmental and natural resources law program. The committee works on sustainability issues for the law school. The committee determines the recipients of the Manas, O’Rourke, and Natural Resources Law Institute Leader awards, and chooses each year’s Distinguished Environmental Graduates. The committee also handles academic issues relevant to the LL.M. and joint degree programs, and to the J.D. environmental and natural resources certificate, including requirements for the certificate, requirements for LL.M. and joint degree program participants, and LL.M. and joint degree admission requirements. They meet monthly throughout the school year (except in December).