It's not business as usual but 'business better than ever' at Florida State's law school, says its nationally recognized dean

Like any strategic chess player, Donald J. Weidner is always thinking a couple of moves ahead. Even in casual conversation, the dean of Florida State University’s College of Law thinks before he speaks, often pausing to mull an answer that he delivers in a beautifully crafted sentence.
 
On the 20th anniversary since he was first appointed dean, Weidner’s strategic thinking is receiving national recognition. He was recently named one of the nine most “transformative” law school deans in the country by influential blogger and University of Chicago law professor Brian Leiter.
 
The accolade, which is awarded for boosting a school’s “intellectual identity and scholarly profile,” places Weidner squarely among some of the nation’s top law school deans, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan (formerly of Harvard University) and Vanderbilt University’s Kent Syverud.

“We have made a sustained effort to focus on our core mission,” Weidner said one morning in his busy office suite. “And that core mission is this: having a superb, scholarly faculty that’s very engaged with students and very engaged with alumni. We’re all on the same page.”
 
Weidner is himself an engaging personality. Smart, apolitical yet politically savvy, he’s an all-day, black-coffee-with-Splenda drinker who happily fills the cups of his guests. A large round table in his modest office — its walls splashed with nautical photos, including one of his first sailboat — invites conversation and an exchange of ideas. Outside his door stands a sculpture he’s so proud of, he likes to spontaneously show it off: a foot-high numerical “50.” Signed by dozens of Florida State law students, it commemorates the school’s continuing rise to national excellence.
 
Under Weidner’s watch, the College of Law has climbed 17 spots over the past seven years in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, pushing it into a coveted top 50 ranking. The online publication, which ranks hundreds of academic disciplines, also rated the university’s environmental law program the sixth strongest in the nation. In addition, the blog “Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports” recently rated Florida State’s law faculty 23rd in the nation in terms of scholarly impact, which is based on citations of faculty research by other legal scholars.
 
The College of Law is making major advances in other areas as well. In particular, a new, 50,000-square-foot advocacy center in Tallahassee’s former First District Court of Appeal building will open in January. It will house teaching courtrooms, as well as the public-interest law center's three clinics, which serve children and people who could not otherwise afford legal representation. One of the clinics involves a partnership between the law school and FSU's College of Medicine. In 2009, the Florida Legislature appropriated $12.9 million for the advocacy-center project.
 

Weidner, 66, has been lauded for his ability to navigate Florida’s notoriously rough political waters, something he attributes to having a diverse range of faculty with variety of viewpoints.
 
“I don’t have any agenda except for the law school. My agenda is to harness all the resources that can be brought to bear for the law school,” Weidner said. “We try to have diversity of viewpoint. People respect that. We’re not liberal or conservative. Republicans, Democrats and independents alike have all come to rally around the law school.”
 
It’s worth noting that he really is a chess player (he once wrote a piece of short fiction about it for the school’s alumni magazine) as well as a serious reader of junk fiction and intellectual brain fare: He devours both mysteries of what he jokingly refers to as “airport” newsstand caliber as well as the weighty international publication The Economist.
 
A product of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law (his legal specialties include select tax and business issues), Weidner, who grew up in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, walks the walk when it comes to public education. Public universities are his life’s passion: He firmly believes the doors to Florida State’s College of Law should always be open to talented students from lower- and middle-income families.
 
“In the financing of higher education, cost is important,” he said. “I’m very concerned that we can’t keep offsetting budget cuts with dramatic tuition increases. We must continue to offer a high-quality education at a price that can be afforded by children from families of modest means.”
 
Although some public law schools consider it a badge of honor to charge tuition rates as steep as those at many private schools, Weidner said such hefty price tags can lead to “a loss of identity” because they become financially inaccessible for many students. (By comparison, Florida State’s law school tuition is a relatively modest $18,000 a year for in-state residents.) He’s proud of the school’s “Summer for Undergraduates” program, which prepares undergraduate students for law school, particularly those from groups who are historically underrepresented in the legal profession. The results are tangible: For the past seven years, Hispanic Business Magazine has rated the law school among the nation’s 10 best for Hispanic students.
 
The law school’s core public mission, Weidner said, can continue to be served in part through increased private giving. This is, in fact, another bragging point for the school, which has seen its annual alumni giving rate increase by more than 400 percent in recent years. With nearly one-third of its alumni giving back, the College of Law rates 10th best in the nation (third among public universities), according to data from the American Bar Association.
 
Still, Weidner said, he doesn’t want to see tuition spikes so steep that students from families of “modest means” will have to rely on a few coveted scholarship slots.  Ultimately he wants to keep Florida State’s law school an affordable, top-notch, elite public institution “that is all-inclusive, where all students can succeed, where it doesn’t matter whether they are Anglo or African-American, Hispanic or Asian.” Weidner also hopes to continue to grow his talented roster of faculty. (One of the dean’s top challenges is keeping intact his prestigious faculty, members of whom are often courted by other top law schools such as those at Vanderbilt and the University of Virginia.)
 
The long-range forecast for the Florida State University College of Law doesn’t just look bright under Weidner’s continued watch. It looks positively sunny.
 
“Everyone succeeds here,” he said. “And they succeed by being meritorious and accomplishing things. It’s not going to be ‘business as usual’ but ‘business better than ever.’”