University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law

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Dean’s Innovation Fund

What is this fund?

Recognizing that the law affects nearly every aspect of life, and that society continues to evolve, the Dean’s Innovation Fund helps address how legal education can mirror and anticipate those changes with visionary leaders, professors and students who can meet them.

Under the dean’s direction, the fund may be used to help the law school reach potential students and faculty, including those who may come from nontraditional backgrounds or who may believe that the door to a legal education is not open to them.

Fund Impact

The Business of Law: Meeting the Challenge of the Future

In September 2022, UH alumnus Jay H. Shidler donated $1 million to start the Dean’s Innovation Fund. The Fund will allow UH Law School Dean Camille Nelson to bring into legal education the type of innovative approach that drives business.

Businesses and other organizations are constantly innovating and changing, and lawyers must keep up with the pace of their progress. It is important for law schools to keep their curricula as current as possible to ensure that their students understand the shifting legal context in which these ever-changing business practices are occurring.

“Lawyers, businesspeople, philanthropists, advocates and community are all looking at challenging moments and opportunities,” said Dean Camille Nelson. “When we consider things we never thought about 10, 20 years ago—nonfungible tokens, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, big data, privacy, cyber security, health care, constitutional discord, you name it—we weren’t talking about that in law school and we’re still trying to figure out the legal role and impact. Whenever there are vanguard-type questions, lawyers ought to be involved in the problem-solving. While we don’t think of law schools as hubs or labs for innovation, lawyers have to be creative, increasingly entrepreneurial, and innovative to meet the challenges of the future.”

Recognizing that the law affects nearly every aspect of life, and that society continues to evolve, the Dean’s Innovation Fund will help address how legal education can mirror and anticipate those changes with visionary leaders, professors and students who can meet them. Celebrating its 50th anniversary next year and building on its accomplishments since its inception, the UH Law School is uniquely positioned to lead and participate in these important conversations and to shape leaders for the legal profession and beyond.

Above, Celebrating the Launch of the Dean’s Innovation Fund with Inaugural Donor Mr. Jay Shidler. Read full story

Make a Gift

Your donation to the Dean’s Innovation Fund will help the Law School:

  • Reach potential students and faculty, including those who may come from nontraditional backgrounds
  • Meet the issues of ongoing societal change, social justice and equity
  • Participate in the broader discussion of who we are as Americans in terms of the laws that govern us and who writes them