Professor Leo Martinez Assumes Presidency of Association of American Law Schools

University of California Hastings College of the Law Professor Leo Martinez has been elected President of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the nation’s principal learned society in legal education and the principal representative to other national higher education organizations and international law schools.

His one-year appointment as president began January 2013, and was announced last year at the 2012 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., following a unanimous vote of the AALS House of Delegates.

Martinez is a member of the American Law Institute and a past member of the AALS Executive Committee. He has conducted more than 20 separate site accreditation visits at American law schools on behalf of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and the AALS.

Executive Director Susan Prager commented that "the AALS is fortunate to have a person of Martinez's depth of experience, sound judgment, and multi-faceted accomplishments as President during such a challenging time for legal education."

“I am honored to have been elected to lead the AALS," said Martinez. "My theme will be 'Looking Forward: Legal Education in the 21st Century.' This will allow us to take stock of where we are with the aim of looking at the future in a systematic way."

“UC Hastings has been privileged to have faculty who have been very active within the AALS,” said Frank H. Wu, UC Hastings Chancellor and Dean. “We are proud that this tradition continues, and are confident that Professor Martinez will be a valuable asset in moving forward the Association’s purpose – improvement of the legal profession through legal education.”

Following his graduation from UC Hastings in 1978, Martinez met his military commitment as a member of the U.S. Army JAG Corps, served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and built a private practice focused on tax issues with the San Francisco law firm of Howard Rice, et al.

Martinez joined the UC Hastings faculty in 1985 and served as the college’s Academic Dean for 12 years. He has been back in the classroom since 2006, interrupted in the 2009-10 academic year when he served as UC Hastings’ Acting Chancellor and Dean. His teaching has included some combination of contracts, federal tax, tax policy, tax procedure, and insurance law. He is the author of the West casebook on insurance law and an editor of the four-volume treatise New Appleman Insurance Law and Practice Guide (Leo P. Martinez, Marc S. Mayerson & Douglas R. Richmond eds. LexisNexis 2012).