Strategic Plan

As we celebrate our Centennial year, we are proud to present a strategic plan shaped by institutional data, peer benchmarking, and the insights of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Together, these perspectives guided a strategic planning process rooted in our legacy, values, strengths, and bold aspirations. The appointment of Dean LaVonda N. Reed in July 2024 brings experienced and forward-thinking leadership for the work ahead, with a clear focus on student success, including academic, bar, and career success; financial strength, allowing for expansion of resources for mission-aligned priorities; and sustaining a positive and supportive culture and climate within which our community members can learn, engage, and thrive. In the years ahead, building on our strengths and moving forward strategic plan initiatives, UBalt Law will continue to prepare students to lead and adapt in a rapidly evolving profession.

We start with a strong foundation and many strengths — including our engaged students and alumni — who bring with them a variety of experiences and perspectives; outstanding and nationally recognized faculty and staff; highly effective career services; impactful scholarship, clinics, centers and initiatives at the forefront of civil discourse, social justice, and change; and dedicated support for academic success and bar passage. Our students will continue to learn through an innovative curriculum that integrates legal theory, legal writing, and real-world experience through offerings in our top-ranked clinical program, immersive externships, and early integration of practice-based learning through courses like Introduction to Lawyering Skills and the EXPLOR program (which connects students to real-world work experience after their first year).

Graduates will continue to serve and lead on the bench, and throughout the bar and industry in Maryland, Washington D.C., and beyond. Our community will continue to be supported by and benefit from our extensive, proud and engaged alumni network, with many alumni returning to teach, speak, coach, and provide students and other alumni with career support, including internship, externship, and other employment opportunities. With deep ties in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. communities, our community also will continue to benefit from UBalt Law's partnerships with preeminent institutions, including a multitude of law firms and public service organizations.

UBalt Law also will continue to benefit from university-wide initiatives that promote excellence in teaching, fund public service opportunities for students, and enable joint degree offerings in law and other disciplines such as business, negotiations and conflict management, public administration, public policy, and criminal justice. UBalt Law will continue to contribute to and benefit from the University's status as a Carnegie Foundation-designated research-active institution. UBalt Law's impact is strengthened as part of the broader University of Baltimore and University System of Maryland (USM) ecosystem, and its vision and mission align with the University of Baltimore Mission and Strategic Plan and the USM's Vision 2030.

Developed through a multi-year collaborative effort, the UBalt Law strategic plan outlines what we envision for our future and how we will build on our strengths to get there. It outlines our priorities for the next five years and centers on seven strategic goals, each paired with actionable objectives and strategies that we plan to employ to realize those goals. Full plan implementation will take securing additional resources to advance a range of activities, including support for bar passage and student scholarships, as well as support for curricular initiatives, faculty scholarship, and community impact, including support for graduates pursuing public service and public interest careers. The plan will provide a foundation to solicit strategic investments by alumni and friends of UBalt Law.

We thank our entire UBalt Law community for enthusiastically and meaningfully engaging in the strategic planning process — including our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. With our collective vision and support, UBalt Law is most certainly poised to lead the way to educate the next generation of lawyers who will go on to achieve justice and improve law, policy, legal institutions, systems, and people's lives in local, state, national, and international communities.