Michael G. Chiorazzi joined the University of Miami School of Law as associate dean for information services and Dean’s Distinguished Director of the Law Library on July 2, 2018.
Chiorazzi is the former associate dean for information services, director of the Daniel F. Cracchiolo Law Library, the Beverly and James E. Rogers Professor of Law, and affiliated professor in the School of Information at the University of Arizona. As founder of the nationally renowned Law Library Fellows Program, he has mentored many law school graduates into the law librarian profession throughout the country.
“Michael is widely regarded as one of the preeminent and farsighted law librarians in the country,” said Patricia D. White, dean of the law school. “He will be able to lead our library with creativity and distinction as it faces the significant challenges and equally great opportunities of these times.”
The American Association of Law Libraries awarded Chiorazzi their Distinguished Lecture Award in 2013. He presented his paper, “Mentoring, Teaching and Training the Next Generation of Law Librarians: Past and Present as Prologue to the Future” at the Annual Meeting of AALL, in Seattle, Washington. The Law Library Journal subsequently published the paper.
The University of Miami graduate began his career as a reference librarian and senior instructor in legal research at Duke University School of Law from 1981 until 1989. He then served as the deputy director of the Law Library and legal research instructor at the Boston College School of Law from 1989 to 1996. He moved to Arizona in 1996.
Chiorazzi's research interests and publications include legal history, issues in law librarianship, and the use of technology in the teaching of legal research.
The editor of the Legal Reference Services Quarterly since 1999, he has served as an AALS Delegate and the House of Representatives at the University of Arizona College of Law. He has received the AALL Law Library Publication Award (with Kathryn Christie and Claire Germain), the Joseph L. Andrews Bibliographical Award (with Marguerite Most), the AALL Distinguished Lectureship Award and he was inducted into the AALL Hall of Fame in 2012.
He received his Bachelors from UM in 1977, his J.D. from Gonzaga University, and his Masters in Law Librarianship from the University of Washington.
“I am excited to come back to Miami, where, as an undergraduate work-study student, I worked in the law library,” said Chiorazzi. “I feel like I’ve come full circle.”
The University of Miami’s mission is to educate and nurture students, to create knowledge, and to provide service to our community and beyond. Committed to excellence and proud of the diversity of our University family, we strive to develop future leaders of our nation and the world. www.miami.edu
The University of Miami School of Law’s mission is to foster the intellectual discipline, creativity, and critical skills that will prepare its graduates for the highest standards of professional competence in the practice of law in a global environment subject to continual ― and not always predictable ― transformation; to cultivate a broad range of legal and interdisciplinary scholarship that, working at the cutting edge of its field, enhances the development of law and legal doctrine, and deepens society’s understanding of law and its role in society; and to fulfill the legal profession’s historic duty to promote the interests of justice. www.law.miami.edu
