ABA executive described as 'accessible' and 'real resource' for law deans set to retire next spring
Bill Adams: “I was pleasantly surprised by the ability of the law schools to quickly switch to online teaching and their willingness to continue to use that option.”
Bill Adams, a former attorney for the Legal Services Corp. and a law school dean who helped guide schools through the COVID-19 pandemic, has announced that he will be retiring as the ABA’s managing director for accreditation and legal education.
In a July 20 press release, Adams said he would leave by May 2024 but was “flexible” in case his replacement has not been hired by then.
For Adams, a standout memory for him is the almost 200 ABA-accredited law schools moving to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, which began as he assumed his current position in spring 2020. The same year, the ABA House of Delegates approved a resolution to give law schools flexibility when responding to emergency situations.
“I was pleasantly surprised by the ability of the law schools to quickly switch to online teaching and their willingness to continue to use that option,” Adams told the ABA Journal in an email.
Much of Adams’ work involves working with the council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
“Bill has been a good face for the council. He has been accessible to and a real resource for the deans. His approach was to deal with problems quickly before they became bigger problems, and he served legal education well,” said Leo Martinez, a former law school dean and the immediate past chair of the council, in the press release.
Martinez heads a nine-member search committee tasked with finding Adams’ replacement. The committee is working with the executive search firm Isaacson, Miller Inc.
An Indiana University Maurer School of Law graduate, Adams worked as an attorney for the Legal Services Corp., representing the elderly and people living with HIV, before becoming a law professor at the Nova Southeastern University in Florida in 1990.
While there, he taught criminal law, tort law and constitutional law and was its acting dean, as well as director of clinical programs. As a law professor, he worked on various cases focused on LGBTQ rights.
Adams was selected as the dean of the Western State College of Law at Westcliff University in California in 2009 and came to the ABA in 2014 as its deputy director of accreditation and legal education. When he leaves the ABA, Adams plans to retire in Palm Springs, California, travel and find volunteer opportunities, he told the Journal.
