Mainebiz

V O L . X X I I I N O. X V I I I A U G U S T 7 , 2 0 1 7 26 D anielle Conway knew she wanted to go into law when at eight years old, she heard Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech for the fi rst time. e youngest of four chil- dren raised by a single mom in North Philadelphia, she listened to a recording of the speech on a Fisher Price record player in her room. "I associated that speech with lawyers," she says, "and it was at that moment that I started communi- cating to my mother my desire to become a lawyer." Inspired by her only daughter, Gwendolyn Conway went to Temple Law School at night in her 40s while working full-time as an accountant and tax manager for the city of Philadelphia. Every day, mother and daughter would compare notes about law school and high school, and Danielle remembers being "transfi xed" by her mother's colorful stories about her professors. "When she graduated, she was radiant, and I thought: She's who I want to be," she says. Conway became even more inspired after seeing her mother forced to leave her job and go on welfare to study for the bar exam, which she passed with fl ying colors. "I'd never been prouder of anyone," she says. " at made my fi re burn that much brighter." As her mother went on to open her own practice and become a judge in the Philadelphia Municipal Court, Conway pursued her own path that led her in 2015 to become the fi rst African-American dean of the University of Maine School of Law. In just two years, the 49-year-old has made the school more student- and community-focused, strengthened and expanded the curriculum and boosted enrollment and diver- sity, winning the respect of her colleagues and others throughout the state. She also connects with students on a personal level, inviting them to "sympathy tea" in her colorful ground-fl oor offi ce, decorated with a totem pole sculpted by the late Judge Frank M. Coffi n and synthetic lilies (her favorite fl ower). "She is a force of nature," says Eliot Cutler, CEO of the Maine Center for Graduate Studies. "She is strong- willed, strong-voiced, strong ideas, forceful in her advo- cacy, but collaborative," as with planned graduate center for business, law and public policy that the two have worked on together since her arrival. Maine Law's force of nature B y R e n e e C o r d e s University of Maine School of Law 246 Deering Ave, Portland Founded: 1962 Dean: Danielle M. Conway Students: 250 Incoming Class of 2020: 84 students expected (30% out of state, 19% diverse, average age 28) Contact: 207-780-4355 / mainelaw.maine.edu P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY E D U C AT I O N Danielle M. Conway Dean University of Maine School of Law University of Maine School of Law Dean Danielle M. Conway in the Grumbine Gallery at the Portland Museum of Art, where she has been a trustee and served on the collections committee.

• Cover