MANHATTAN – In weighing her career options, Patricia E. Salkin looked for something that would give her a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The problem, according to associates at Albany Law School, is that she found something that so enthralls her that she never seems to sleep.

For a dozen years, Ms. Salkin has been the energetic engine that drives the school’s Government Law Center, an adjunct established in 1978 to forge a tighter link between the only law school in New York’s capital and public policymakers.