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Dean Jason Kreag recently connected with Arizona Attorney Magazine to discuss the latest developments at the College of Law and the outlook for the academic year ahead. Read on for excerpts from that conversation.
What accomplishment from the past year had the most significant impact on your school?
Recent graduates of the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law achieved record employment numbers, breaking the college’s 2023 all-time high. The Arizona Law class of 2025 full-time, long-term rate of employment for bar-passage required and JD-advantage jobs is 92.31 percent, the highest ever, exceeding the previous high of 90.35 percent for the class of 2023.
The figure, which quantifies employment 10 months after graduation, also exceeds the national 2025 class rate of 87.7 percent. These employment outcomes reflect years of dedication by our students and the Arizona Law community.
Looking ahead, what challenges and opportunities are shaping your priorities for the coming year?
As I begin my tenure as dean, my priorities are clear: Promote student success and elevate faculty both as scholars and as teachers.
My foremost goal is student success. I want us to be hyper-focused on the outcomes that our students have when they leave us. By that I mean I want to graduate students who pass the bar exam, and I want to support our graduates as they enter the profession, whether that’s big firm practice, government service, public service or otherwise.
To achieve these outcomes, I will lean into the College of Law’s strong community in addition to rigorous academic and student support services. At Arizona Law, student-faculty engagement happens in and out of the classroom, on campus and around Tucson. These informal ties help students explore what success in the profession means to them. I encourage alumni and friends to contribute their time and resources to the college, from coaching and judging competition teams to recruiting and hiring students and recent graduates to financial giving. Our alums benefited from a very affordable legal education when they were students, and I want to make sure that our current and future students have that same opportunity.
My other main priority—elevating the work of faculty—ties into the primary goal of student success. I plan to build on the strengths of initiatives like the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program, which draws world-class faculty who contribute to national and international scholarly discourse while also supporting student success and career outcomes.
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