NewHavenBIZ

16 n e w h a v e n B I Z | M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 9 n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m W o m e n W h o M e a n B u s i n e s s W hen Quinnipiac University Law School relocated to a new building adjacent to the medical school in 2014, its dean and professor of law, Jennifer Gerarda Brown, regarded the close proximity as more than just architectural. "e idea was to talk about law as one of the healing professions," Brown explains. "It was really two-fold. In health law and policy, lawyers could be part of a health- care team to improve outcomes for patients, or can be part of an interdisciplinary team with other professionals. "e second way can be through the work of lawyers in dispute resolution." Of course, all kinds of forces can injure people, physically and emo- tionally, but resolving issues with minimal strife and stress, Brown contends, can facilitate the healing "if a lawyer handles it well." She acknowledges her character- izing of law as a healing profession is "fairly uncommon." Brown, 59, was born and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., where her father, a chemist, was on the University of Illinois faculty. She considered pre med, but decided to become an English major at Bryn Mawr College because she preferred reading and writing to solving math problems. e Healing Power of Law As a law school CEO, Jennifer Gerarda Brown regards the 'customers' not just as law students, but as human beings By Karen Singer ' We a r e t r y i n g t o g e t s t u d e n t s t o t h i n k a b o u t t h e i n t e g r a t i o n o f t h e i r p e r s o n a l v a l u e s a n d t h e i r p r o f e s s i o n a l v a l u e s . ' - Jennifer Gerarda Brown "Fundamentally, what lawyers do is read and write about texts — whether the texts are statutes, regu- lations, contracts or court opin- ions," Brown explains. "You have to read things carefully, understand them, and clearly and persuasively advocate for a position in litigation or for a client in negotiations." Aer graduating from Bryn Mawr with an AB degree in 1982, Brown went to law school. "I saw it as a way I could have a positive influence in the world," she says. Brown earned her JD at the University of Illinois College of Law in 1985 and was a law clerk for a year for Harold A. Baker, a U.S. District Court jurist for the Central District, Illinois. en, she spent three years as litigation associate at Winston & Strawn in Chicago, where she worked on "some pretty big" cases involving securities fraud and contract breaches. "I loved being in the library, and trying to find things in cases that would help our clients," she says. "I didn't stay in practice very long. I figured out, even while in law school, that I ultimately might want to teach, where I could be focused on reading and writing." Aer a stint teaching legal writing as a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago, Brown was promoted from assistant professor of law to associate professor at the Emory University School of Law. It was there she met her hus- band, Ian Ayres, a lawyer and economist who currently is a pro- fessor at Yale Law School and Yale's School of Management. Brown joined the Quinnipiac Law School faculty in 1994 as an associate professor. Two years later, she was a full professor. [Over the years, Brown has taught as a visiting law professor at Harvard, George- town and the University of Illinois, and also served a visiting lecturer and senior research scholar at Yale Law School.] Brown is grateful Quinnipiac University administrators gave her time to raise two children. "When an institution or an or- ganization makes an investment in a young parent, as they did in me, that can foster incredible loyalty to the organization," she says. "I value that experience now, as a leader at Quinnipiac, because it helps me understand the challenges of people who work outside the home." In the late 1990s, Brown became the founding director of the Quinnipiac law school's Center on Dispute Resolution. e center was one of the first of its kind in the country, and some- thing of a pioneer — today there are dispute-resolution programs at more than two dozen U.S. law schools. "We're usually ranked in the top 15 or 20," Brown says. In the 2018 U.S. News & World Report Dispute Resolution Program specialty rank- ings, Quinnipiac University Law School was ranked No. 14. "My experience in directing that center taught me the value of looking for partners with comple- mentary strengths and wanting to achieve things with us that we wouldn't necessarily be able to achieve on our own," Brown says. Such collaborations include the Quinnipiac-Yale Dispute Resolu- tion Workshop, which sponsors a lecture series featuring prominent scholars and practitioners, and the Connecticut Agricultural Media- tion Program, which is adminis- tered by the center and provides conflict-resolution services to the state's agricultural and rural community. "We also strengthened the [cen- ter's] curriculum, and now have competition teams that go around the region," Brown says, "provid- ing chances in and outside the classroom to build skills in dispute resolution and problem-solving." Fueling a responsibility Brown has written extensively about alternative dispute resolu- tion, lawyers' professional responsi- bilities and LGBT legal issues. "I have family members and very close friends who are gay or lesbian," she says, "and seeing the kind of pain they experienced, particularly because of the denial of freedom to marry the person they loved, definitely fueled a responsi- bility." Brown and her husband co-au- thored Straightforward: How To Mobilize Heterosexual Support for Gay Rights (Princeton University Press, 2005). She also testified before the Connecticut legisla- ture's Judiciary Committee about legislation pertaining to same- sex marriage, and was one of the principal authors of a friend-of-the court brief in support of the plain- tiff couples in Kerrigan v. State of Connecticut, the 2008 Connecticut Continued on Page 44 PHOTO/DAVID OTTENSTEIN

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