The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit association of 176 member and 19 fee-paid law schools. Its members enroll most of the nation’s law students and produce the majority of the country’s lawyers and judges, as well as many of its lawmakers.
AALS has the dual responsibility of serving law schools and their deans as their institutional membership organization, and individual law school faculty and administrators as their learned society. AALS provides extensive professional development opportunities including the AALS Annual Meeting, the centerpiece of yearly association activities which draws thousands of professors, deans, and administrators. Faculty and deans engage throughout the year via more than 100 sections that present programs, provide mentoring for new faculty, and serve as a resource for discussions on important legal issues from antitrust, dispute resolution, and taxation to civil rights, criminal justice, and international law. Each year, the association also hosts a clinical conference, faculty appointment services, and a workshop for new law teachers. In May 2021, AALS hosted the Conference on Rebuilding Democracy and the Rule of Law with the American Bar Association and Law School Admission Council as co-hosts. The conference brought legal scholars together with current and former high-level government officials to analyze the health of our democracy, discuss who is responsible for protecting it, and consider reforms related to the presidency, the electoral process, race and voting rights, and presidential elections.
