Austen Parrish named new law school dean

The Maurer School of Law has named its new dean.

Austen Parrish began his role as dean of law Jan. 1, replacing Provost Lauren Robel, who was dean of the law school starting in 2003 before becoming provost in 2012.  

Along with the appointment, Parrish has also been named a James H. Rudy Professor of Law.

John Applegate, Walter W. Foskett professor of law and executive vice president for university academic affairs, chaired the search committee.

“I think the committee did a fabulous job of looking broadly at a wide range of candidates, being very collegial and thoughtful about the various points in which you need to make choices and selections.” Applegate said.
“And I think that the outcome was excellent.”

Parrish received his B.A. in political science and economics from the University of Washington before going on to complete his J.D. degree at Columbia University.

“I liked the problem solving aspect of law school,” Parrish said. “At the time I was somewhat idealistic and wanted to make a difference. I saw a law degree as a way to do that, and a way to help people in a variety of ways.”

After graduating from Columbia University, Parrish went to practice complex business litigation at the global law firm O’Melveny & Myers.

There he worked mainly in company-to-company litigation, but also did some civil rights work and policy litigation, Parrish said.

“This is the time where you need someone who has a lot of energy, who is truly committed to the value of the legal profession and legal education,” Applegate said.

“Someone who has a lot of creativity and ideas and really wants to go out there and be thoughtful about the future of the legal profession, and be very enthusiastic about the great opportunities that legal degrees provide to people.”

After five years of legal experience, Parrish entered academia in 2002 as a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.

In 2008 he became vice dean of academic affairs.

Parrish said he thinks the strengths he brings to his job at IU is from all his past experience.

“A lot of the things I was doing at Southwestern, which was curricular innovation and working with faculty and trying to expand the school’s reputation, are similar things I’ll be doing at IU,” Parrish said.

As vice dean of Southwestern Law, Parrish said he oversaw both full time and adjunct faculty and was heavily involved with students in academic support classes and bar exam support.

From July 2012 until November 2013 he served as CEO and interim dean at Southwestern.

“We thought it was really important to provide opportunities for our students to learn how to be a lawyer, to direct career paths into local communities,” Parrish said.

Applegate said Parrish exemplified those characteristics the committee was looking for in a new dean.

“I am absolutely thrilled with the Provost’s choice, and I think that Dean Parrish is going to do great things for Maurer,” Applegate said.

Parrish said Southwestern Law School and Maurer are very different from each other, but he thinks the traits of being a good dean translate from school to school.

He said he has both short and long-term visions for the law school.

In the short term, Parrish said, the focus is on attacking more aggressively things that the law school has done well in the past and addressing the school’s major challenge of helping students find employment after graduation.

“We will have a number of initiatives in the first six months to better help our students to get employment after school as quickly as possible,” Parrish said.

In the long term he wants to continue the law school’s global focus, he said.

“We need to continue what we have been doing well in the past,” he said. “We just need to put it on steroids and move aggressively to continue the momentum of the prior dean,” Parrish said.

Robel said Parrish should fit right in at IU.

“I am delighted to welcome Austen Parrish to Indiana University and to our law school community,” Provost Robel said in a press release. “Austen is an exciting leader, and I am confident that he will inspire our faculty, students, staff and alumni to continue raising the national and global profile of Maurer.”

But Parrish said he’s not the only one that deserves the credit.

“I’m looking forward to celebrate, maybe even more loudly, the accomplishments of the faculty and the students and the school generally,” Parrish said.