A Message from the Dean: Momentum and Opportunity

Dear Alumni and Friends,

This has been a remarkable season for the College, and I wanted to take a moment to share some of what we have been building together.

As many of you will know, earlier this spring the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees approved the renaming of our College as the Donald P. Klekamp College of Law, in recognition of a blended cash and estate gift totaling $43.2 million from the Klekamp family in honor of their father, Donald P. Klekamp, JD '57. It is the largest gift in our nearly 200-year history, and a transformational investment in scholarships, experiential learning, student success, and a Corporate Law Center we intend to build into one of the finest in the country.

The gift is already at work. This year we provided need-based financial aid to more students than ever before, funded every student who sought a Summer Public Interest Fellowship, and made meaningful investments in faculty support. These are early signals of what this gift will make possible over time — and we are just getting started.

The broader momentum is real. Applications have more than doubled over the past three years, far outpacing national trends. Our bar passage rank improved from 70th to 57th. Our peer assessment score rose from 104th to 93rd. And our student-faculty ratio now ranks 11th in the country.  That momentum was on vivid display at the Ohio Innocence Project's annual fundraising dinner in April, where actor Tony Goldwyn joined us to speak about innocence work and the evening raised $200,000 for OIP. Forty-four exonerees. Eight hundred and forty-five years of wrongful imprisonment, returned to the people who lost them. This work is not an amenity for this College — it is an identity.

I also want to be straightforward with you about our overall U.S. News ranking, which moved from 71st to 82nd this cycle. The primary driver was employment outcomes, which carry the largest weight in the methodology. Our graduates achieved an 84.2% bar passage-required employment rate — a strong result in absolute terms — but rankings are comparative, and this cycle the comparison was not favorable. Our professional development team had measures in place before the rankings were released, and this year's outcomes data is tracking among the strongest we have recorded. Because rankings reflect prior-year data, that progress will take time to appear. I have deep confidence in our team to keep us moving forward.

Rankings will rise and fall. What matters more is the direction of the institution — and by every meaningful measure, this College is stronger today than it was just a few years ago. I am deeply grateful for your continued engagement and support. We could not have done this without you.

Kind regards,

Dean Haider Ala Hamoudi, Nippert Professor of Law

Lead photo: Dean Haider Ala Hamoudi. Photo taken by Joseph Fuqua II.