A teacher and scholar moves on

When UB School of Law graduates gather for an all-alumni reunion this October 20th, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor David Engel is planning a little something on the side: a reunion of the 50 or so alums who, as students, traveled with him to study the legal system of Thailand.

Many students say those January bridge-session trips opened their eyes to how law works in a societal context. The Thailand courses offered real-life exposure to the “law in action” – a key tenet of the Law and Society movement, for which Engel has been an influential leader.

Engel, who is retiring from his UB School of Law teaching duties after 37 years at the school, brought that same perspective to his classes in Buffalo, where he taught courses on torts and products liability and seminars on the tort law system, disability rights, and on law, culture and society.

“I just love teaching, the whole process of teaching,” he says. “It has been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done. I loved working with students who are just beginning law school in the fall semester, starting with a complete blank slate and trying to help them understand, how do I acquire the knowledge I need and a method for learning more? And it has been so rewarding to see the careers that my students have gone on to, as judges, prosecutors, working in big and small firms, or doing public-interest work or government work.”

Even in retirement, he won’t lack for further opportunities to teach. Engel and Professor Lynette Chua, a law professor at the National University of Singapore, hope to launch a five-year program of 10 workshops, which he and Chua would organize and teach in Singapore. The goal is to train and mentor young Asian scholars and graduate students who conduct research in Asian law and society. He’ll also continue lecturing at Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

And the lecture invitations just won’t stop coming. This spring he delivered the annual addresses at both the Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Leiden University’s Von Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society. Engel is a former president of the Law & Society Association, the world’s premier organization for the interdisciplinary study of law. Last year he received the association’s highest honor, the Harry J. Kalven Jr. Prize, in recognition of his long and continuing work in interdisciplinary legal study.

Engel will stick around O’Brian Hall for much of the coming academic year, officially on research leave as he works on two new books and a couple of articles.

“What brought me here in the first place is also what has kept me here,” he says. “The law school is a special place. Its values are still somewhat unique in legal education – the importance of public service, along with an understanding that the law operates in a broader society. A really effective lawyer has to understand the social context as well as the law on the books. UB remains more dedicated to living that vision than most law schools.”