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Professor Mary A. Lynch spent a part of her summer moving the needle on one of her biggest passions: improving legal education.
On August 10, Professor Lynch participated on the panel “Best Practices, Pedagogical Questions, Methods and Assessment” at the Upstate Clinical Conference in Ithaca, N.Y. She presented on two books: “Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World,” to which she contributed a section on intercultural effectiveness in teaching; and “Learning from Practice: A Text for Experiential Legal Education,” co-edited by Albany Law colleague Professor Nancy Maurer. Professor Lynch’s presentation also included Albany Law’s Center for Excellence in Law Teaching (CELT) and its award-winning Best Practices for Legal Education blog.
The two-day event was organized by Albany Law School, Syracuse University College of Law, University at Buffalo School of Law, and Cornell Law School, which served as the host institution. Professor Sarah Rogerson, director of the Albany Law Clinic & Justice Center, was one of the co-organizers of the conference that featured substantive workshops and a scholarship session for works-in-progress.
Legal education remains a focus of Professor Lynch’s writings. Her recent scholarship includes “Incentivizing and Assessing Faculty Committee Work Contributions, Why Now?” (co-author), forthcoming in the Journal of Legal Education.
Professor Lynch is the director of the Center for Excellence in Law Teaching, editor of the ABA Blawg 100-honored website Best Practices for Legal Education, and serves on the editorial advisory board for the Journal of Experiential Learning. She is a former co-president of the national Clinical Legal Education Association and has served as an executive member of the Association of American Law Schools’ Clinical Legal Education Section. Professor Lynch served as a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession and chaired its Educating and Training New Lawyers subcommittee. She is a past recipient of Albany Law School’s Excellence in Teaching award and the Kate Stoneman Special Recognition award for her contributions to the advancement of women in the legal profession. She has also been honored by the local chapter of N.O.W. and Irish America Magazine.
This past May, Professor Lynch — a nationally recognized expert on issues related to legal education and violence against women — was appointed the Kate Stoneman Chair in Law and Democracy.
Prior to joining the Albany Law faculty in 1989, Professor Lynch worked as an appellate and trial attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s office. In 1996, while serving as director of the school's Domestic Violence Law Project, Professor Lynch and seven Albany Law students won clemency for a woman who was incarcerated for killing her abuser. Currently, as director of Albany Law School’s Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic, she supervises students working in Special Victims Units and domestic violence courts throughout the Capital Region.
She is a graduate of New York University and Harvard Law School.
