George Washington University Law School is pleased to announce the appointment of Laurie S. Kohn as Senior Associate Dean of Academic Development, Graduate, & Online Education. In this new role, Dean Kohn will join Senior Associate Dean Elizabeth Ewert and Senior Associate Dean Steve Schooner as part of Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew’s senior leadership team. Dean Kohn will remain the Jacob Burns Foundation Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs.
Dean Kohn’s new responsibilities complement her outstanding leadership of the success and growth she has led with her team in the clinical program. Her portfolio will bring coordination and oversight to GW Law ‘s wide range of experiential learning programs as well as the Law School’s bar passage program. In this new role, Dean Kohn will leverage her significant management experience and expertise to help strengthen and grow the ties between the GW Law programs in field placement, public interest, professional development, and the Law School’s career development and job placement efforts. This role will directly serve the Law School’s strategic goals of advancing academic programs that are integral to the “ecosystem” that prepares GW Law graduates for satisfying and impactful careers.
Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew said, “Laurie is the perfect person for this job. As the Jacob Burns Foundation Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs and the Director of the Family Justice Litigation Clinic and Access to Justice Clinic, Laurie and her team have doubled the size of the Clinical Program and enhanced our Clinical Program development efforts substantially by creating a Clinical Law Advisory Council. Her efforts have culminated in our US News Clinical rankings jumping 18 spots in one year.”
Before joining the GW Law faculty in 2010, Dean Kohn was Co-Director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center, where she supervised students representing victims of domestic violence, taught the clinic seminar, and litigated domestic violence and criminal contempt cases. Prior to entering academia, Dean Kohn was an associate at the DC law firm of Crowell & Moring. Before entering private practice, Dean Kohn focused on disability rights, assisting in the legislative phase of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s office, and later in the regulatory drafting and implementation phase of the ADA in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Dean Kohn also worked at the Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union, focusing on reproductive rights and disability policy. Dean Kohn’s scholarship focuses on family law, domestic violence, and access to justice. Her work has appeared in law reviews and in Ms. Magazine.
“I am thrilled to join the senior management team and support our visionary dean, Dayna Bowen Matthew, in realizing the mission of GW Law. I am honored to have the opportunity to take part in this exciting and innovative time for our Law School and University.”