As dean, Brietta Clark currently oversees LMU Loyola Law School. After more than 20 years of teaching and five months as acting dean in interim, she has been appointed. She is the first Black dean in the 103-year history of Loyola Marymount University (LMU) and the 19th dean of the school’s law school. Her appointment makes her the first woman to hold the role as well.
According to CBS News, she will oversee a student body that totals more than 300 students, over 60% of whom are women.
“I am thrilled to welcome Brietta Clark as the new Fritz B. Burns Dean of LMU Loyola Law School,” LMU Executive Vice President and Provost Thomas Poon, Ph.D. said. “Her unparalleled expertise, combined with her passion for advancing research and education and her commitment to diversity and inclusion, makes her an exceptional leader to propel our law school into a future of excellence and innovation.”
Clark is the latest in a long line of black women who are running universities and law schools around the nation. Her hiring coincides with the university’s efforts to broaden its inclusivity, especially in the legal education program.
“This is a place where we interrogate the law,” Clark said. “Where we’re all about social justice. We think about inequality, right? And yet it has taken a long time for the legal academy to start to have its leadership, and even its professors and faculty and students, really reflect the diversity of America.”
According to the University’s website, she began her career as a law school faculty member in 2001 and has held a number of positions since then, most notably Associate Dean for Faculty from 2015 to 20. According to the website, she recently received the St. Thomas More Society’s 2023 David P. Leonard Faculty Service Award.
The school’s Black Law Students Association, the Judge Stephen O’Neil Trial Advocacy Mentoring Program (also known as the “Young Lawyers Program”), and the Health Law & Bioethics Student Association have also recognized her for her mentorship. She also took part in the Ignatian Colleagues Program at AJCU, which is designed for leaders in Jesuit higher education.
She was involved in the drafting of the ethical and legal guidelines for pain management for physicians while serving on the Los Angeles County Medical Association-Bar Association Joint Committee on Bioethics in her early career.
She also volunteered as an attorney for the HIV/AIDS Legal Services Alliance in addition to serving on the Institutional Review Board at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles.
She worked at the Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood office in Los Angeles, where she was an expert in healthcare transactions and regulatory compliance, before coming to LLS.
Additionally, she worked as a volunteer for the National Health Law Program, which sparked her interest in Medicaid eligibility and defending safety-net hospitals in impoverished areas.
Clark, meanwhile, received her J.D. from USC Law School, where she was also a post-graduate research fellow, and her B.A. from the University of Chicago.
Her work in public service and research has centered on the disparities in the financing and delivery of healthcare in the United States. According to LMU, Clark raised approximately $6.3 million during her months as interim dean, including a $5 million donation to the Bill and Gail Robinson Scholarship Fund.