Selective Investment Awards

Selective Investment 2000 Award Recipients

The College of Law will use its Selective Investment Award to:

• Achieve a top-ten ranking among public law schools and a top-twenty ranking among all law schools (both public and private) by 2005;

• Move its ranking to among the top five public law schools and the top fifteen law schools in terms of citation counts;

• Maintain its first-place ranking of its Dispute Resolution Program;

• Move its Intellectural Property Program into the top ten;

• Create a program in which Ohio State faculty outside the college can pursue interdisciplinary research in collaboration with Law faculty; and

• Hire seven faculty members (including two joint appointments with other departments).

College of Law

The College of Law seeks to hire new experts in various areas of law with its Selective Investment funding, but also seeks to create an opportunity for Ohio State faculty across campus to undertake law-related research in a new distinguished visiting research professorship. Under the proposed program, faculty from other disciplines would

Gregory H. Williams

Gregory H. Williams, dean

maintain residence in the college during fall semester and collaborate in research with members of the law faculty; college leaders say the program will build lasting connections between law faculty and the rest of the University.

The college seeks to increase the size of its faculty by hiring five new full-time professors in the areas of criminal law, intellectual property/cyberlaw, corporate law, law and society, and professional ethics. In fact, earlier this week, the college received a commitment to join the faculty from one of the top five criminal law professors in the nation. Two joint professorships also are proposed, one with political science and another with the Mershon Center. The Mershon Center position would expand the college's already No. 1 alternative dispute resolution program by adding an international component to the college's investigation of and expertise in this increasingly important area of law practice.

Dean Gregory H. Williams said Selective Investment support should allow the college to achieve its goal of becoming a top 10 public law school with respect to its academic reputation by 2005.

A highly interdisciplinary college, with numerous clinics in place in areas of dispute resolution, civil and criminal law, the college also is home to a Center for Research on Law, Policy, and Social Science. It has an emerging national reputation in intellectual property and health-related law, houses nationally recognized faculty and is one of the university's more diverse units—all of which contributed to its selection for targeted funding.

"I think it's always important for an institution, particularly a university, to recognize its strengths and nurture them," Williams said. "We feel very flattered to be recognized as one of the great strengths of Ohio State that will help propel the university into the highest ranks of public institutions."

Selective Investment 2000 Award Recipients