As I write this note, my thoughts are on the next few weeks, as several hundred of our graduates will make their way into the legal profession, while several hundred others will gain experience working summer jobs in law firms, non-profits and government agencies. Experience is key while in law school, and our students are benefiting from some unique and rewarding opportunities. Students such as April Haag, '06, and John Steffy, a rising 3L. April was a research assistant to the senior adviser to the director on Societal Implications of Genomics at the National Human Genome Research Institute and John was a Legal Research and Analysis Fellow in the ABA/CEELI Regional Anti-Corruption Adviser's Office in the Ukraine . Impressive!

A few of our biggest yearly events were held this semester, including the Adler-Rosecan Moot Court Competition, the Jurists-in-Residence lectures and visits from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Missouri Court of Appeals (pictured above: Judge Booker T. Shaw, Chief Judge Glenn Norton and Judge Nannette Baker, '94). We're always delighted to provide our students with opportunities to interact with the very judges who they may, one day, encounter in the courtroom.

I am pleased to report that this issue of Saint Louis Brief is our largest ever, filled with insightful commentary from professors and alumni, and stories like the one on page 8 that pays tribute to a great patriarch of our profession, Judge Theodore McMillian, '49. On page 14, three of our very own, Professor Sandy Johnson, Father Frank Reale and Professor Ann Cronin-Oizumi, share with us a unique story that began in 1969. Their connections, legal and otherwise, might just amaze you.

On page 18, famed author and screenwriter Richard Dooling, '87, has written the introduction for our story commemorating the 50th volume of the Saint Louis University Law Journal. Dooling, who was the editor in chief during his law school days, says that work on the Journal was "an early initiation into how difficult and important it is to write well and write with care and precision." I'm proud to see a former student build a future out of the very lessons he learned here at the School.

As this issue of Saint Louis Brief reaches you, I send, with it, all best wishes from the School of Law campus at Saint Louis University . I hope your summer is a pleasant one. You might even run into some of our graduates or current students!

Jeffrey E. Lewis
Dean and Professor of Law