Officials at the University of Washington School of Law and St. John's University School of Law both announced new deans on May 14.
Kellye Testy, the dean of Seattle University School of Law, will become dean of the University of Washington School of Law beginning on Sept. 1. Her appointment was approved by the UW Board of Regents on May 14.
Testy will be the first permanent female dean of the UW School of Law, which is 110 years old.
During the past three years of Testy's tenure, Seattle University School of Law's U.S. News & World Report ranking rose to No. 77, up more than 20 spots. Testy said that she hopes to lift the rankings at her new posting, which placed No. 30 this year.
"The university would really like to see its law school become one of the top public law schools in the country," she said. "They would love to see a movement toward the top 10."
Testy joined Seattle University School of Law as an assistant professor in 1992 and was promoted to associate professor in 1996. From 2001 to 2003, she was the Patricia L. Wismer Professor of Law and, in 2004, she became associate dean for academic administration. She was named dean in 2005.
Testy has taught contracts, corporate governance, corporations and public policy, business entities, securities regulation and gender and the law.
The Board of Trustees of St. John's University has appointed Michael A. Simons to become dean of its law school on July 1. Simons replaces Mary C. Daly, who passed away in November after serving as dean since August 2004. Andrew J. Simons, a law professor at St. John's, has been serving as acting dean since November.
Michael A. Simons has been a faculty member at St. John's since 1998 and served as associate dean for faculty scholarship from 2005 to 2008. He has received the Dean's Teaching Award three times and was recognized as Professor of the Year in 2000. He teaches criminal law and evidence, with scholarship and articles focused on sentencing, prosecutorial decision making, and punishment theory.
"What I really like about teaching is the chance to educate the next generation of lawyers and shape the legal profession and train legal minds," he said. "In a classroom you do that with 50 or 80 or 100 students at a time in one particular topic. The challenge of running a law school is different. It's about building an institution and it's about looking at the big picture and thinking broadly about legal education as opposed to thinking of your particular subject and how you're going to teach it. It's that challenge that attracts me to be dean."
Before joining St. John's, Simons was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York for three years. Prior to that, he was an associate at what was then Stillman, Friedman & Shaw in New York.
