Gary Myers, dean, University of Missouri School of Law

What regional differences do you notice in coming to Missouri from the University of Mississippi?
Missouri offers a nice mix of the Midwest, the South and the Great Plains, so I think it offers the best of all three. The barbecue styles are different but all very good.

How does your family like Columbia?
We have received a very warm welcome from everyone here in Columbia. One of the great things about this city is its excellent quality of life. It is a great place to raise a family while also offering lots of things to do, such as the recent Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival. There are great recreational offerings and a good selection of restaurants. One of my goals is to try every restaurant in the city.

What was the transition like coming into your new position?
It was a bit of a whirlwind transition. I returned to the United States from a summer work obligation, which happened to be in England. One week later, we made the move from Mississippi to Missouri and arrived on a Sunday. I started my new job as dean that Wednesday, which was the first day of new student orientation. The first month of work flew by very quickly.

What is your first major project as the new dean?
My first fundraising priority is to raise money to fully fund the Tim Heinsz Professorship, which will honor the memory of our longtime faculty member and former dean. Once the professorship is fully funded, it will enable us to recognize the work of one of our excellent faculty members. Internally, I am hoping to increase the level of staffing for our skills training offerings and for fundraising and development.

What is something people wouldn’t know about being the dean of a prominent law school?
I have been surprised by how rarely the telephone rings in my office. Almost everyone communicates by email now.

Employment rates for law school graduates are the lowest in 16 years. What are you doing to make sure Missouri graduates have a competitive edge?
Missouri has done better than most of its peer institutions in placing our graduates in jobs in which they can make use of their law degrees. Under my predecessor Larry Dessem’s leadership, we expanded the size of our career services office to provide our graduates with increased support for their job search.

Last year, the school lowered its number of new students from 150 to 135. What was the need?
Are we going to see the classes get smaller? This decision was made in anticipation of the reduced number of law school applicants nationwide, as well as the difficult economic environment in which there are fewer positions available for new law school graduates. It was a very responsible thing to do. I do not think we will reduce our class size further; 135 is a good class size for us for the next few years at least.

You’ve said before that you want to expand skills-related courses and training opportunities. How would that be funded with smaller classes?
We can offer more skills training opportunities by increasing the level of financial support from our alumni and friends of the law school, by getting more alumni involved in teaching courses for our students and by deploying our existing resources with a greater focus on skills courses. At some point, we will probably need to consider increasing tuition modestly to help fund any significant expansion in our skills and clinical offerings.