Robert R. Kuehn, JD, professor of law, has been named associate dean for clinical education at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, effective July 1, 2011.
Kuehn
Kuehn, along with three other members of the faculty (Annette Appell, JD; Peter Joy, JD; and Karen Tokarz, JD), is a past president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), the nation’s largest association of law teachers. He also has served on the American Association of Law School’s Standing Committee on Clinical Legal Education and Executive Committee for the Section on Clinical Legal Education.
Prior to joining the law school in 2009, he was associate dean for skills programs at the University of Alabama School of Law.
Kuehn focuses his teaching and scholarship on environmental law, clinical legal education and professional responsibility.
As co-director of the law school’s Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, he supervises student-lawyers who work on multidisciplinary teams to serve clients facing environmental harms.
He has published on such topics as access to legal representation, environmental justice, environmental enforcement and professional responsibility and is one of the leading experts on academic freedom in the operation of law school clinics.
Before becoming a law professor, he clerked for the Hon. James C. Hill, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and the Hon. Sidney M. Aronovitz, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
He then was a trial attorney with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the U.S. Department of Justice before leaving to found and direct the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.
In making the announcement, Kent Syverud, JD, dean of the law school and the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor, noted Kuehn’s national reputation: “We are very fortunate to have Bob assume this position,” Syverud says.
“He is widely praised as a clinical teacher and program administrator and, standing on the shoulders of the terrific work of his predecessors, Annette Appell and Karen Tokarz, will provide great leadership to our expanding clinical program.”
Kuehn succeeds Appell, professor of law, who will finish her successful three-year term this summer and return to the full-time faculty.
Syverud praised Appell’s accomplishments.
“Annette is a first-rate clinician and scholar who cares deeply about quality education for students,” he says.
“She helped improve our clinical programs in many ways. I am deeply grateful for her hard work and assistance in moving our clinical programs forward. I am also happy that she will be continuing to play a leadership role in our Civil Justice Clinic.”
Washington University School of Law’s award-winning Clinical Education Program consistently rankz among the nation’s premier programs, provides law students with opportunities to learn professional skills and values by working directly with clients, attorneys, judges and legislators.
With 14 distinct law clinics and externships, including programs based in Washington, D.C., and operating internationally, law students have unparalleled opportunities to hone their skills as future practitioners while helping to increase access to justice.
Founded in 1973, the program enables students to assist needy clients in a full range of substantive areas, including appellate, child and family defense, civil rights, criminal defense, environmental, housing, immigration, intellectual property, juvenile justice and nonprofit organization matters.