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Seton Hall University Announces Kathleen M. Boozang as New Dean for Law School

A Nationally Recognized Health Law Scholar, Boozang Launched Seton Hall’s Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law & Policy

South Orange - Seton Hall University Provost Larry A. Robinson announced today the appointment ofKathleen M. Boozang as the new Dean of Seton Hall School of Law. She will begin her tenure as Dean effective July 1, 2015.

Boozang, currently Associate Dean for Academic Advancement and Professor of Law, joined Seton Hall Law in 1990. She helped launch and currently directs the school’s prestigious Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law & Policy, ranked a Top 10 law health program by U.S. News and World Report for the past 19 years. She co-founded the Seton Center for Religiously Affiliated Nonprofits, and created the Law School’s Division of Online Learning.

“We are delighted that Professor Boozang will serve as the new Dean of Seton Hall School of Law. Kathleen has been an innovator since she joined the law school 25 years ago,” said Provost Robinson. “She has been a driving force in the law school’s dedication to academic excellence and diversity, as evidenced by her forging the Law School’s partnership with NJ LEEP. Professor Boozang is deeply dedicated to students and faculty, as well as the community which Seton Hall Law serves. She embodies Seton Hall Law’s mission, which makes her the perfect choice as our next dean.”

Boozang will be the third woman to serve as Dean of the Seton Hall School of Law. Miriam T. Rooney served as the school’s founding Dean in 1951 – the first woman Dean of an accredited law school in the United States. Elizabeth Defeis, now a Professor of Law at Seton Hall, served as Dean from 1983 to 1988.

“It is a great honor to be named the next Dean of Seton Hall Law School,” Boozang said. “ I will continue our drive to be a leader in legal education, preparing our law and graduate students with the knowledge and skill sets necessary to embrace the emerging opportunities in today’s global market.” In 2004, Boozang led the launch of the school’s Healthcare Compliance Certification Program, which has trained thousands of professionals in the pharmaceutical and life sciences fields and is now offered in San Francisco, Singapore. Boozang expanded the Law School’s focus on compliance education to include Master of Science in Jurisprudence degree programs in Healthcare and Life Sciences, as well as Financial Services Compliance. Law students may also pursue a J.D. concentration in Compliance.

Boozang served as the University’s Vice Provost in 2010 and 2011. Prior to moving to the University’s main campus, she served for eight years as Law School Associate Dean, and then for two years as Associate Dean for Academic Advancement, also overseeing the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology.

In 2013, the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics conferred upon Professor Boozang the Jay Healy Health Law Teacher Award. Boozang’s success as a scholar has earned her election to the American Law Institute, the American Bar Foundation, and the Hastings Center. She graduated from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as the managing editor of the Law Quarterly. After practicing law for several years primarily representing Catholic healthcare institutions, she received her LL.M. from Yale Law School.

Dean Boozang succeeds Patrick E. Hobbs, who has served as Dean of Seton Hall Law for the past 16 years, one of the longest-serving law schools deans in the nation. “Dean Hobbs has brought Seton Hall Law to great prominence, and to a new level excellence,” Provost Robinson commented. “His vision is realized in the school’s multiple centers of excellence in health law, intellectual property law, and social justice as well as a focus on increasing diversity within the legal profession through the formation of the Dean’s Diversity Council.”

Hobbs has been recognized for bringing incomparably talented faculty to Seton Hall Law and increasing the stature of the Law School in New Jersey, the New York metropolitan area, and nationally. The rise of Seton Hall Law is also reflected by its student bar passage rates that exceed state averages, and graduate employment rates well above those of most other schools in the New York metropolitan area.

“I am delighted that my colleague and friend will succeed me as Dean,” Dean Hobbs said. “She is the right person to lead Seton Hall during this time of extraordinary change in legal education and the practice of law. Under her leadership I am confident our Law School will reach even greater heights.” Dean Hobbs plans to return to teaching at Seton Hall Law after a year-long sabbatical.

Seton Hall University School of Law, New Jersey's only private law school and a leading Catholic law school in the New York metropolitan area, is dedicated to preparing students for the practice of law through excellence in scholarship and teaching, with a strong focus on clinical education. Its compliance programs for law, graduate students as well as mid-career professionals in health, life sciences, and financial services are second to none. Founded in 1951, Seton Hall Law School is located in Newark and offers both day and evening degree programs.


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April 117, 2015