Baylor News, Dean Brad Toben to Return to Baylor Law School Faculty:
Bradley J. B. Toben, J.D. ’77, has decided to transition as dean of Baylor Law School and return to the faculty, effective July 1, 2023, Baylor University Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D., announced today.
Dean since 1991, Toben will continue to serve as The M.C. and Mattie Caston Professor of Law. Patricia Wilson, J.D., associate dean and professor of law, will serve as interim dean as of July 1. A national search for the next dean of Baylor Law School will begin in the 2023-24 academic year, with the search process announced at a later date.
“Dean Toben has had a profound impact on Baylor Law,” Provost Brickhouse said. “He has hired approximately 90% of the faculty and staff in the Law School. The wonderful Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center is the product of his vision and his labor. His knowledge of, and relationships within, the many Baylor Law constituencies run deep. Simply put, Baylor’s Law School is largely the product of the team Brad has created and cultivated for decades – and it is a very healthy law school.”
“Dean Brad Toben has served faithfully as a distinguished member of the Baylor Law faculty since 1983 and dean since 1991,” President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D., added. “He has led Baylor Law through an era of tremendous change, while lending a significant voice to the national conversation in legal education. Thanks to Dean Toben, Baylor Law School is poised to continue as one of the nation’s premier teaching law schools for future practitioners for generations to come. We are deeply grateful for his remarkable leadership of Baylor Law for more than 31 years, and we pray God’s deepest blessings on him and his wife, Beth.”
Nationally, Toben is the longest-serving leader among the deans of the 200 American Bar Association (ABA) accredited law schools. Under his leadership, Baylor Law enjoys a reputation as a top teaching law school, whether students choose to focus on the Law School’s gemstone trial advocacy program, a business and transactional practice, a prosecution career or a criminal defense practice. Baylor Law has risen to the top 50 of U.S. law schools and is ranked No. 2 nationally for trial advocacy by U.S. News & World Report. Baylor Law also has continued its unparalleled success on the Texas bar exam, including the top pass rate on the most recent July 2022 exam. Likewise, the Law School consistently has had an enviable placement rate for its students. The fall 2022 matriculating class is the best credentialed ever, and the Law School’s enrollment is the most diverse ever, with 30.4% students of color and 54.7% women. Approximately 86.5% of the law students come from undergraduate institutions other than Baylor University.
Toben has led Baylor Law for the past three decades by building upon the successes and institutional objectives of his predecessors. During his time as dean, Baylor Law undertook an impressive building and endowment campaign, and in 2001, the Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center opened on the banks of the Brazos River. In addition, he has raised the Law School’s endowment from less than $1 million to more than $180 million, and recently celebrated Baylor Law substantially exceeding its $50 million Give Light fundraising goal.
His tenure has seen significant faculty and staff expansion, a marked reduction in the faculty-student ratio and the development of a vibrant pro bono and public service program that has won multiple awards from the ABA and state bar entities, including the ABA’s Pro Bono Publico award, which previously had been awarded to only three law schools over a three-decade period. Baylor Law also has developed several new curricular innovations, including programs focusing on professional development and on leadership, each the recipient of the ABA’s prestigious E. Smythe Award, in 2018 and 2022 respectively. Baylor Law offers one of the most rigorous across-the-curriculum legal writing programs in the nation, 15 professional curricular tracks, the nation’s first Executive LL.M. in Litigation Management, as well as several dual-degree programs.
He also has been active in numerous civic and charitable activities and has served as an elder, trustee, deacon and chair of the board of Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
