April 24, 2012
Jeffrey K. Walker, Assistant Dean for Transnational Programs
and Adjunct Professor at St. John’s School of Law, likes to say he
is in the import-export business.“I bring foreign students over
here, and I want to send our students abroad,” he observed
recently.
Dean
Walker joined the Law School faculty last July, and one of his
mandates from
Dean Michael A. Simons was to develop international programs.
As a result, the Law School will launch its new Master of Laws
(LL.M.) programs in
Transnational Legal Practice and
International and Comparative Sports Law in August 2012.
The LL.M. in Transnational Legal Practice is designed to train
U.S. and foreign attorneys in the cross-border practice of law and
to educate global attorneys within the New York City legal
community. The International and Comparative Sports Law LL.M.
focuses on legal practices relating to the international sports
community.
Dean Walker has also retooled the LL.M. program in
U.S. Legal Studies for Foreign Law School Graduates, with an
emphasis on helping these students pass the New York State Bar
Exam.
“The School of Law prides itself on turning out practicing
attorneys,” Dean Walker said, “and that’s the bigger ethos of these
LL.M.’s.” In the past, he noted, most American LL.M.’s related to
international law took a largely theoretical approach.
“Our goal is to make our LL.M. students into skilled
practitioners,” he said. “We can draw from an enormous pool of
practitioner adjuncts at big international law firms. We’ve got the
United Nations here and the U.S. Court of International
Trade. People want to come to New York City. We’re playing to
our strengths.”
Preparing to Serve
A self-professed “international guy,” Dean Walker’s background
in international law is extensive. A former military lawyer and
judge advocate, he served as legal advisor to NATO’s air operations
center for the Balkans, and was deployed to Bosnia following the
1995 Dayton Accords, which ended the war there. He practiced as a
U.S. government lawyer in Italy, as well as a Chief Prosecutor and
a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. District Court of
Wyoming.
Following his military service, he spent eight years as founding
and managing partner of BlueLaw International
LLP, an international law and development firm.
Dean Walker never intended to become a lawyer. Following his
graduation from Tulane University, he worked as a stockbroker for a
year. “I absolutely hated it and needed to find something that was
the polar opposite,” he said. Both his uncle and great uncle had
been aviators during World War II, so he decided to join the Air
Force.
Serving as a navigator and bombardier on B-52 aircraft, Dean
Walker was offered a chance to attend Georgetown University Law
Center for training as a judge advocate. Since his undergraduate
and graduate education had been in international relations, he
continued that focus in law school.
After stints in the military and consulting, Dean Walker was
ready for something new, and found the idea of moving to academia
attractive. He was aware of the “qualitative differences” between
Catholic law schools and their private counterparts.“There is so
much emphasis on service [at St. John’s],” he said, “with so many
clinical programs dedicated to helping populations in need. There’s
something special about that.”
Returning to the notion of “import-export,” Dean Walker said his
work is about “building people for service and giving back. We can
bring foreign-trained lawyers to the United States, inform them of
about U.S. law and culture, allowing them to return to their home
countries to develop the legal culture and economy there” in a
positive way.
Conversely, Dean Walker added, “I want to send St. John’s
students overseas. It’s exceptionally good for American students to
be a minority somewhere — to be in a foreign country where they
don’t speak the language, and it’s not their culture, law or
educational system. It’s a great growth experience.”