A Year in Review

Dear Alumni & Friends,

What a wonderful year 2025 has been for Southern Illinois University Simmons Law School! While the life cycle of a law school moves along with some predictability every year from orientation through final exams, the last year has been filled with many high notes and accomplishments that, when taken together, are so very emblematic of who we are as an institution. As I reflect back over the past year, I want to share with you some of the highlights that stand out.

In early 2025, under the leadership of our extraordinary Interim Dean and Professor of Law, Angela Upchurch, Simmons Law School hosted the Illinois Supreme Court on the SIU campus in Carbondale. Over 900 SIU students, faculty, staff, alumni, students from regional middle and high schools, and friends gathered in the SIU Student Center to hear two cases presented in front of the justices of our state's highest court. We were also treated to an engaging Q&A after the arguments. Mark and I were thrilled to be at this event even before my tenure as Dean officially commenced. It was truly the best introduction to our Simmons Law School community.

Just a few weeks later, we hosted a reception to celebrate a gift from Judge Phil Gilbert to name the law school's administrative suite to honor the legacy of his father, Sen. John G. Gilbert, who was deeply committed to education and public service and an instrumental force in the creation of our law school. We look forward to honoring Judge Gilbert with an honorary law degree from Southern Illinois University Simmons Law School at our graduation ceremony in the spring.

We began the year by enrolling the largest entering class in recent memory, and it has been a joy to watch our first-year students make their way through their law foundational courses and develop a keener sense of the possibilities inherent in a degree from Simmons Law School. Our 2025 graduating class made us incredibly proud with their performance on the bar exam in July, passing the Illinois bar at a rate of seventy-seven percent and the Missouri bar at a rate of eighty-six percent. Their hard work, together with new curricular innovations and faculty support, paid dividends.

All of the events and goings on at the law school are too numerous to mention. But I would be remiss if I did not highlight our annual Moot Court Health Law Competition, which has been hosted by the law school for the past thirty-four years. Designed to address critical issues of health law and policy, the law student teams from across the nations demonstrated exceptional advocacy skills as they argued about a problem that touched on the very real mental health crisis in this country.

I also want to reveal a sneak peek of what lies ahead. We will begin the new year with our annual Hiram H. Lesar Distinguished Lecture on January 14, featuring Immigration law and policy scholar César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández who will deliver a public lecture, “Immigration Law in Turbulent Times.” This is the 28th lecture in the series established to honor founding Dean Hiram H. Lesar and his concerns regarding civil rights and the public interest. We are busy planning our Simonds Lectureship in Democracy and other events, and will be sure to reach out with more details as they unfold.

We have been engaged in a substantial faculty hiring initiative and have recruited three outstanding new professors who will join the faculty in the Fall of 2026. They will add to the intellectual diversity of our institution with their research interests in Agricultural Law, Intellectual Property and Health Law.

Our current faculty are engaged scholars and teachers, presenting at academic conferences and community organizations throughout the year. Five professors from Simmons Law School are slated to speak at the annual Association of American Law Schools annual meeting in New Orleans next month. 

Developing the law school's clinical program is an ongoing priority. The Legal Clinic offers students access to practical training that is an invaluable component of their education. I'm excited to share that we just received a grant that will allow us to expand our Clinic's presence in our region with the addition of a new position, a Clinical Legal Fellow. This opportunity will allow us to expand our capacity to simultaneously offer critical legal services to the community and provide practical, experiential training to law students.

As I look forward to the coming year, I remain laser-focused on strategic priorities that are both forward looking and responsive to the realities of current law practice, and informed by our history and the reasons our law school was first established in 1972. The impact our lawyer alumni have had on the legal community generally, and the Southern Illinois region specifically, cannot be overstated. Many of our regional counties are true “legal deserts,” and access to lawyers, and by extension, justice, is not readily available. It is indeed sobering to consider the void that would exist in the provision of legal services without the infusion of our alumni into law practice, the judiciary, and beyond.

If our paths have not yet crossed, I hope we might connect during my upcoming visits to New Orleans, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, Tampa, Naples, Portland, and beyond. To those of you I have met, please know these conversations have been a highlight of my time at Simmons Law School.

On a personal note, Mark and I could not be happier that we have landed in Carbondale and look forward to all that the new year has in store. We will welcome home our children over the coming weeks and are excited to introduce them to our new community. We are grateful for the outpouring of support since our arrival and the new friendships we are beginning to cultivate.

I wish you the happiest of holidays and best wishes for a peaceful new year.

Hannah Brenner Johnson
Dean & Hiram H. Lesar Professor of Law
Southern Illinois University Simmons Law School

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