Texas Wesleyan School of Law's Assistant Dean of Career Services, Katherine L. Chapman, Esq: Advice to Law Students

Summary

Katherine Chapman is the Assistant Dean of Career Services at Texas Wesleyan School of Law. In this role, she works with law students to develop career plans and advises them on job-seeking strategies. She also provides one-on-one counseling in understanding job markets and navigating legal opportunities.


Katherine has over a decade of legal recruiting experience and has been with Texas Wesleyan Law School since 2008. She was recently named the new assistant dean of Career Services in January 2018. In this role, she continues to guide law students in their job inquires to assist them in achieving their professional goals.

Katherine is a proud graduate of Texas Wesleyan Law School and looks forward to helping students reach their career aspirations. She has worked in legal recruiting since graduating and has been with Texas Wesleyan Law School since 2008. As assistant dean of Career Services, Katherine is responsible for the development and implementation of the school's career services program for all 2L and 3L students.

Katherine Chapman is an experienced law recruiter with a passion for helping law students reach their professional goals. As Assistant Dean of Career Services at Texas Wesleyan School of Law, Katherine provides one-on-one counseling and assists law students in understanding the job market and navigating legal opportunities. She is a proud graduate of Texas Wesleyan Law School and has been with the school since 2008. Katherine is dedicated to developing career plans for law students and helping them to succeed in the legal profession.
 

Texas Wesleyan School of Law Assistant Dean of Career Services – Katherine L. Chapman, Esq.

Katherine L. Chapman, Esq. is the Assistant Dean of Career Services at the Texas Wesleyan School of Law. She has been with the Texas Wesleyan School of Law since 2006, and prior to that she was an adjunct professor of legal research and writing. Ms. Chapman has been involved in legal education since 1987, when she graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law.

In her current role as Assistant Dean of Career Services, Ms. Chapman oversees the professional development and career services program of the school. She is responsible for counseling and advising students on the job search process, and she assists employers in their recruiting efforts at the school. She also works closely with the faculty, staff, and administration to ensure that the school's students are adequately prepared to enter the legal profession.

Ms. Chapman has been a member of the American Bar Association's Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs since 2002, and she is a past president of the Arkansas Association for Women Lawyers. She is also a founding member of the Texas Lawyer Assistance Program, which provides confidential counseling and assistance to law students and lawyers who are dealing with stress, addiction, and mental health issues.

In addition to her professional activities, Ms. Chapman is actively involved in various charitable organizations in the Fort Worth area. She is a board member of the Fort Worth Bar Association and the Texas Bar Foundation. She is also a member of the Fort Worth Legal Secretaries Association, the Society of Professional Women in Business, and the Texas Hispanic Lawyers.

 

Katherine L. Chapman's Extensive Legal Experience

Katherine L. Chapman is an experienced legal professional who has been involved in legal education since 1987 when she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Arkansas School of Law. Since then, she has worked in a variety of legal positions in both the private and public sectors. Ms. Chapman has been the Assistant Dean of Career Services for the Texas Wesleyan School of Law since 2006 and is responsible for counseling and advising students on their job search process, as well as assisting employers with their recruiting efforts.

Ms. Chapman is also a member of the American Bar Association's Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs since 2002, and is active in various charitable organizations throughout the Fort Worth area, such as the Fort Worth Bar Association, the Texas Bar Foundation, the Fort Worth Legal Secretaries Association, the Society of Professional Women in Business and the Texas Hispanic Lawyers.

Through her involvement with the Texas Wesleyan School of Law and her other professional involvements, Ms. Chapman has become an invaluable asset in not only the legal profession, but also in the Fort Worth, TX community. Her dedication to her work and her commitment to helping others make her a leader, both in the legal field and beyond.

The Texas Wesleyan School of Law is less than 15 years old. Such relative youth in comparison with more established Texas law schools presents it with opportunities as well as drawbacks. The opportunities include the ability to create state-of-the-art buildings, build a top-notch faculty from scratch, and tailor all of this carefully to the needs of the community it serves. Texas Wesleyan has done this.

As for problems associated with being the youngest, these require long-term solutions. A reputation must be built. If law firms, corporations, and government entities are unaware of you, it makes it more difficult to place your graduates with them. Thus, in situations such as this, the Career Service Office arguably assumes an even greater importance than at more established schools.

Such is the burden that falls on Katherine L. Chapman, Esq., Texas Wesleyan School of Law's Assistant Dean of Career Services. Her charge is not only to help students find suitable employment, but to use her valuable connections with both the Fort Worth and Dallas Bar Associations to get her law school registered in the consciousness of those in a position to hire.

Katherine's formidable resume includes 25 years as the Vice President for Legal Affairs for the University of Texas Medical School at Dallas. In this in-house counsel job, she quickly became adept at working within both academic and corporate settings. Tired of the long commute, she eventually switched to a local firm, where she specialized in Health Law. Evenings, she would teach as an adjunct professor at Texas Wesleyan. When the Dean of the Law School asked her if she would be interested in filling the newly vacated Career Services position, she agreed.

What Katherine struggles with most on campus is assuring that evening students get the same care and attention provided traditional day students. She keeps her office open weekdays until 6:30 p.m. to give evening students time to drop by after their work and before evening classes begin. If she gives a seminar for day students, say, on how to find a job, she repeats the same seminar in the evenings for evening students. She and her staff also gladly meet on weekends with students when the need arises.

All of this would be sufficient to occupy a four-person Career Services office such as Katherine's, but she has another mission as well: educating potential employers about her law school. She does this by knocking on doors. In addition, she remains active in the Forth Worth and Dallas Bar Associations, where she gives quarterly speeches on career development to attorneys of all ages. As a form of 'outreach,' she individually counsels any attorney who needs it. She recently worked with a middle-aged lawyer who had suffered a heart attack and wanted to change careers.

She says she likes the work and the opportunity to be 'out there' in the community as Texas Wesleyan Law School's hard-working Assistant Dean, doing her part to help members of the legal community. There is not always immediate payback for such good works, but Katherine believes her work helps get Texas Wesleyan Law School's name in circulation and that, in the long run, this can only be good.

What follows is another small but telling example of Katherine's resourcefulness and putting others first. When asked if there was anything more she would like to be doing, she answered, "Well, other than what we do, I'd like our offices to be as close to the Student Lounge as possible. That way, a student could get a drink and drop in, talk with us, and get some help." Then, she added, "I put this idea before the Dean because we were doing some renovations, and he agreed. We'll be moving to our new location soon!"