Touro Law Names Director of Solo & Small Practice Initiatives
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Touro Law Names Director of Solo & Small Practice Initiatives
Professor Meredith R. Miller Appointed to Further Curriculum and Support Incubator
November 11, 2014Touro Law Center Dean Patricia Salkin is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Meredith R. Miller as the Director of Solo & Small Practice Initiatives. In this new role, Professor Miller will provide support to the existing Touro Law post-graduate incubator, continue to develop Touro Law’s hands-on solo & small practice concentration and develop synergies between the incubator and the concentration curriculum.
“I look forward to Professor Miller’s leadership as Touro Law continues efforts to provide opportunities for students and graduates who wish to pursue careers in solo and small practice,” stated Dean Patricia Salkin. “Seventy percent of American lawyers in private practice are in solo or small firms and trends demonstrate more and more interest in solo and small firm practice. While we have innovative programs already in place, there is great opportunity for Touro Law to continue its leadership in this area by building a model curriculum for students who intend to open their own practices.”
Professor Miller will work to ensure that Touro Law students are afforded the most cutting-edge curriculum and hands-on learning opportunities to prepare them for the realities of solo and small firm practice. She will host information sessions for students, identify speakers and adjuncts for programs and courses, and build relationships with alumni and practicing attorneys. In addition, she will collaborate with coordinating attorneys at the incubator, build a curriculum for incubator attorneys and assist in transition plans for those attorneys. She will take the lead in developing synergies between Touro Law, the incubator and the legal community.
Both the concentration and the incubator fit within Touro Law’s new Portals to Practice curriculum providing a multi-dimensional approach for students to learn while gaining hands-on experience to ensure graduates are practice ready. This concentration is an integrated program of instruction that incrementally immerses students in the skills development required for entering solo or small practice.
Touro Law opened its incubator, the Community Justice Center of Long Island, in November of 2013. Since its opening, the incubator has helped graduates launch their solo practices through mentorship and training, while assisting the attorneys in developing law firms that are both financially sustainable and professionally satisfying. More recently, Touro Law launched a concentration in solo and small practice. The concentration was developed to provide students with the business and entrepreneurial skills and basic doctrinal legal knowledge they will need to start their own practices. Professor Miller’s primary role will be to find ways to mutually benefit both the incubator attorneys and the students enrolled in the concentration. For example, the Touro faculty recently approved a 1-credit course in Ethics for Solo and Small Firm Practice, which is required for students in the concentration. Prof. Miller will look to bring the incubator attorneys into the classroom to bring the ethics to life and, at the same time, provide ethics training to the incubator attorneys, who will ideally get CLE credit for their participation.
Fred Rooney, Director of the International Justice Center for Post-Graduate Studies at Touro Law noted, “This kind of commitment from Touro Law is unprecedented and will have a profound impact on the legal education offered to students and the support and guidance offered to alumni. It’s the first such appointment of its kind in the country to my knowledge and is sure to help Touro Law emerge as a leader in providing exceptional educational opportunities for students and support for graduates in solo and small practice.”
Dean Salkin stated, “I believe that Touro Law Center is at the forefront in legal education and practical application for students who are interested in solo and small practice. I look forward to continued developments at the law school and successes for our students and graduates.”
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Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center’s 185,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art law school is located adjacent to both a state and a federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York. Touro Law’s proximity to the courthouses, coupled with programming developed to integrate the courtroom into the classroom, provide a one-of-a kind learning model for law students, combining a rigorous curriculum taught by expert faculty with a practical courtroom experience. Touro Law, which has a student body of approximately 650 and an alumni base of more than 6,000, offers full- and part-time J.D. programs, several dual degree programs and graduate law programs for US and foreign law graduates. Touro Law Center is part of the Touro College system.
Touro Law’s newly implemented Portals to Practice is a cutting-edge, experiential learning program that reconceives and restructures the law school experience. Portals to Practice expands the scope and quality of legal education by focusing on the development of legal professionals, from pre-law through post-graduation.
About the Touro College and University System
Touro is a system of non-profit institutions of higher and professional education. Touro College was chartered in 1970 primarily to enrich the Jewish heritage, and to serve the larger American and global community. Approximately 19,000 students are currently enrolled in its various schools and divisions. Touro College has branch campuses, locations and instructional sites in the New York area, as well as branch campuses and programs in Berlin, Jerusalem, Moscow, Paris and Florida. New York Medical College, Touro University California and its Nevada branch campus, as well as Touro University Worldwide and its Touro College Los Angeles division are separately accredited institutions within the Touro College and University System. For further information on Touro College, please go to: http://www.touro.edu/media/.
Patti Desrochers
Director of Communications
pattid@tourolaw.edu
(631) 761-7062