The University of Oregon School of Law is launching a new initiative to dramatically expand its presence in Portland.
The law school is building an academic program that offers interested students the opportunity to complete their full, third-year of law school in Portland, which has the highest concentration of Duck alumni and legal practitioners.
The efforts – scheduled to be in operation by fall 2015 – will build upon the law school's established Portland offerings and will be aimed at providing UO law students expanded academic, professional and extracurricular opportunities that are available in Portland.
To lead the initiative, law professors Mohsen Manesh and Carrie Leonetti, currently based at the UO in Eugene, are relocating to Portland. Together, they will help to re-envision and increase the law school's engagement in the metro area.
Manesh and Leonetti will join Will Glasson, the School of Law's associate director of external affairs, who already is based full-time in Portland. Glasson's work focuses on employer outreach; career-related counseling for students and alumni; and admissions, development and alumni affairs.
With a permanent student, faculty and administrative presence, the UO School of Law will establish even stronger ties with Portland's legal and business communities and the many law school graduates who have established their careers in Portland.
"I'm thrilled to be embarking on this first phase of expanding and refining Oregon Law's Portland presence," said Michael Moffitt, the law school's dean. "The students will benefit greatly from exposure to the culture, climate and legal professionals located in this thriving metropolitan area."
Manesh said he is eager to be leading the new endeavor for the law school and its students.
"Launching a full-year academic program in Portland represents a significant and strategic investment of our law school's resources – one that I am certain will pay meaningful institutional dividends, both in the short and long term," Manesh said.
The School of Law's Portland Program currently offers courses to complement the law school's Portland-area externship offerings. Additionally, the law school hosts numerous academic symposia and industry conferences, focusing on topics ranging from green business to sports and entertainment law.
Manesh, whose teaching and research interests center on contract, corporate and LLC law, earned his law degree from Georgetown University, where he was named Order of the Coif. Prior to joining the UO School of Law, Manesh was an associate attorney in the Seattle office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, where he practiced corporate finance and business transactions. As a professor at the UO, Manesh has received the Orlando J. Hollis Faculty Teaching Award, the law school's highest teaching honor.
Leonetti, a Portland-area native, is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she demonstrated a commitment to public service as a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and as editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. After graduation, Leonetti served as a federal public defender in Fresno, Calif. After joining the UO School of Law, she gained international experience, working with victims of South Africa's apartheid regime at the University of Cape Town Legal Aid Clinic. She was the recipient of a 2011-12 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, focusing on eyewitness identification in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Wayne Morse Suite (a LEED certified Platinum room), at the University of Oregon's White Stag Block in downtown Portland's Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood, serves as the home of the University of Oregon School of Law Portland Program.
- from the UO School of Law