Maureen O’Rourke Leaving Post as Dean of School of Law

As Dean, O’Rourke led a decade of revamping school’s curriculum, physical space.

School of Law Dean Maureen O’Rourke will step down next June, concluding a decade-plus deanship that saw her preside over construction of a new, high-tech-equipped classroom building and defied the gravitational pull of slumping law school enrollments nationally.

O’Rourke will take a sabbatical and then return to the LAW faculty in fall 2019, said Jean Morrison, University provost, in announcing the change at the top.

“It’s a good time to step down,” O’Rourke says, citing the school’s recent reaccreditation by the American Bar Association and a soon-to launch strategic planning process. “A new leader should be the one to see our next 5-to-10-year plan through.

“I have been blessed to work with some of the finest administrators in the country, at both the law school and University level,” she adds. “I’ll miss that.” She’ll spend her sabbatical writing materials for her Secured Transactions course, “so students won’t have to pay for a textbook.”

Morrison says BU will conduct a national search for O’Rourke’s successor that ideally will yield recommendations by May 11.

“Dean O’Rourke has been an exceptional leader at the School of Law over the last 13 years,” says Morrison. “She has driven important advances in the quality, relevance, and accessibility of the school’s academic programs, in the expansion and modernization of its teaching space, and in its national reputation among top law schools.

“We are grateful for Dean O’Rourke’s service and for her continued commitment to making legal education both responsive to the needs of the marketplace and a mechanism for accomplishing public good. We look forward to celebrating her many contributions in the spring,” when an event honoring her will be held.

Among those contributions is O’Rourke’s leadership of a curriculum revamping in response to declining jobs for litigators. The new curriculum focuses on areas where legal jobs are expanding: intellectual property, immigration, and health and international law. The school today has 21 overseas study opportunities, 17 programs offering dual degrees, national and international externships, and a first-of-its-kind clinic that represents human trafficking victims.