Steilen has a memorable way of explaining much of that behind-the-scenes work. He describes himself as the law school’s “plumber,” working “down in the guts of the building” to keep things moving. But alongside those day-to-day responsibilities comes a broader charge: looking across the academic program, identifying opportunities to strengthen or expand it, and helping ensure that a UB Law education continues to prepare students to succeed.

Steilen, UB Law’s William J. Magavern Faculty Scholar, was appointed vice dean for academic affairs in June 2025. A member of the faculty since 2011, he teaches and writes primarily in the areas of constitutional law and legal history and is also an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Philosophy in UB’s College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University.

Even amid the demands of his administrative role, Steilen continues his work as a scholar. His book, Parliament and the Invention of Legislative Power, England, 1100-1330, will be published by Routledge in November.

We spoke with Steilen about his role as academic dean and the perspective he has gained on the law school’s academic mission.

Q: You’ve been vice dean for academic affairs for over a year now. After having some time to settle into the position, how would you describe the job—and what parts of it might surprise people outside the law school?

At this moment, under this dean, the vice dean job is primarily a managerial job. As I told a group of alums this past spring, somewhat cheekily, I’m primarily a plumber. My work is down in the guts of the building, keeping things moving. The dean of students and I work to keep students on the road to graduation. The registrar and I work to keep faculty in the classroom. And consulting with the faculty’s Academic Policy and Program Committee, I work to restock the academic program with new teachers and new classes.

Most of this is management, then, but there are moments and issues that call for leadership. The academic dean is perfectly placed to lead the development of new academic programs. The managerial tasks give me a perspective on our programs that individual instructors don’t tend to have. Looking at the whole suggests where there is room to supplement our programs or update them. Contacts outside the law school, with adjuncts, alums, and department chairs and academic deans in other units also feed a sense of where we should be moving.

I also think the position calls for leadership on matters of academic freedom. The curriculum itself, which the academic dean is in charge of, is an expression of the collective academic freedom of the faculty, and I see it as my job to protect the full-time faculty’s role in settling that curriculum, and to lead and facilitate faculty discussions about what we teach and the materials we use. Legal education differs in important ways from the education programs in other units. It employs different methods, like Socratic questioning, and different materials, like the legal casebook, and its aims are practical and ethical as much as theoretical, since we train students in legal advocacy and acculturate them in the values of the legal profession in an effort to nurture a professional sense of judgment. I think the academic dean has a role, under the guidance of the dean, in helping ensure that the distinctive nature and needs of legal education are understood within the larger university and in advocating on behalf of the law faculty.

Q: What does a typical week look like for you as vice dean? What kinds of decisions or issues tend to land on your desk?

Probably the biggest difference between my day-to-day schedule now and the one I had before taking this position is that my time is not my own. A typical week is full of meetings, the way it is for managers outside the academy. I meet with the dean at the beginning of the week to update him on important matters. I meet daily with the registrar to handle matters relating to the scheduling and placement of classes, student accommodations affecting classes or testing, and grading and graduation requirements. I meet daily with the dean of students to consult on student problems and questions about academic progress towards graduation.

I meet weekly with our academic support staff to identify students of concern, who may be struggling with academic or personal matters, so we can coordinate a strategy to help them succeed. I meet regularly with the director of our undergraduate BA in Law to discuss any issues arising in that program. Right now I am also meeting with each member of the full-time faculty to plan out next year’s curriculum. And I meet with students as well; on a recent Friday I met with a group of three advisees, our transfer students, to hear how they were adapting to their new law school. I also teach two days a week and need to read the materials and prepare my lectures. And in between all those meetings, I need to find time for research. Just this summer I finished a book, which is forthcoming in November.

Q: You’ve been a member of the UB Law faculty since 2011. How has being a longtime professor here shaped the way you approach an administrative and leadership role?

Fifteen years is really a middling tenure on this faculty. Just this past winter, one of my senior colleagues retired with more than 50 years of service. But 15 years is long enough to know most of the full-time faculty well and to have a feel for our faculty culture. I try to be intentional about perpetuating that culture, though of course the curriculum and the faculty must change. But I do think about what “we” at UB value when I think about our offerings and our degree programs. I’ve also taught a good number of different classes at this point: Constitutional Law each year, but also Civil Procedure, Advanced Civil Procedure or Complex Litigation, Administrative Law, Federal Courts, American Legal History, and three different seminars. I’ve seen these fields as a whole change.

Q: One of your major responsibilities is overseeing the curriculum. When you look at the curriculum as a whole, what are you trying to make sure a UB Law education provides every student?

Several years ago, the law faculty adopted learning outcomes for the JD program, and I’m guided by these outcomes in looking at the curriculum. We need to be sure that our graduates not only have a solid knowledge of the core 1L and upper-division subjects, like Civil Procedure, Contract, Torts, and Property, Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, but also Legal Ethics.

Students should have had at least one reading- and research-intensive class in a law-related field, which I think of as a graduate-school-type seminar, since the JD is a graduate degree. They also need to have solid legal skills in legal research, legal writing, and legal problem-solving. They should have had some experience working with a client or a simulated client in one of our experiential classes. They should be able to communicate effectively in their writing and speaking.

In addition, I try to identify practice areas where we have a strong presence or want to develop one. We need a robust business law curriculum for the many students who want business firms as clients. We have a strong reputation in sports law and should continue to offer a variety of sports law classes. We produce many lawyers working on matters in family law and wills, trusts, and estates, and we need to be sure that the curriculum remains vibrant. We also need a specialized procedural curriculum to cover the many methods of legal dispute resolution: courses in mediation, alternative dispute resolution, and, of course, trial. A number of these more specialized courses are offered by adjunct professors, usually members of our legal community, and these classes also offer students an opportunity to connect to the legal community.

Q: You recently mentioned that UB Law is offering some particularly new or innovative courses. What are some examples, and what prompted the law school to add them?

The faculty have developed a number of innovative courses in the past several semesters. Our Legal Writing professors are offering a variety of new courses on subjects like wrongful convictions, capital punishment, AI and legal writing, government litigation (offered by a former AUSA), and “Lawyers as Leaders”—all this in addition to teaching their legal writing classes.

Professor Irus Braverman offered the first-ever combined JD and Law BA class in Climate Change and the law. We have also enriched our offerings by connecting with faculty in other units. Law students can now take (for law school credit) a class in the School of Management, "Mergers & Acquisitions Strategy and Finance.” I worked with the instructor to be sure the class was appropriate for law students. Our students can take a class offered within the law school itself by the former chair of the Department of Linguistics, “Language & the Law.” This sort of arrangement was essentially unknown and required negotiating a special agreement with the College of Arts and Sciences, and that’s where I came in.

Q: Now that you’ve had a year in the position, what would you like alumni and others in the UB Law community to understand about your role and the academic direction of the law school?

I have to take a programmatic view of the curriculum. When it comes time to deciding what classes will be offered, how many students can enroll in a class, and whether a class will satisfy a graduation requirement like the experiential requirement or the seminar requirement, I have to consider not just one particular class, but all our offerings, and how inserting a class or counting it for a graduation requirement will affect other similar classes.

If I don’t limit enrollment for a popular instructor, their class will enroll so many students that it will change the character of the class into a large lecture and may reduce enrollment in other classes so dramatically that we have to cancel them. Enrollment is not just a “free market”; most of our students—like students everywhere—will avoid classes they think will be especially difficult or require them to master a new skill or area of law. So while allowing our students a range of choice, I have to limit that range, so we can be certain that graduates have a well-rounded legal education and are prepared for an uncertain future.

It’s also important to understand that I have a special responsibility to advocate for the full-time faculty within the university. We are a law school in a major research university, and I have to protect and nurture the role of our full-time faculty in developing and delivering the law curriculum in that university. I count myself as a lawyer, of course, but I am also an academic, which means I am a researcher and a professional teacher. Researching, writing, and teaching is what I do for a living, and this produces a perspective different from most lawyers. I think it’s a good thing for law schools to be in universities, and for our lawyers to have had a true graduate school education before they enter the practice of law. I view it as my responsibility to promote this particular tradition of legal education.