February 2025
The Dean’s Council provides LSU Law alumni with the opportunity to remain engaged with their alma mater while helping underwrite tuition waivers for LSU Law students. Learn more about the many benefits of becoming a member of the Dean’s Council. Send any questions you have about membership to Calli Scelfo at cscelfo@lsufoundation.org.
As a recent graduate who credits LSU Law for providing him with the foundation on which he’s building a thriving career, Michael Dalman (’21) is eager to give back to his alma mater and support current students at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center.
“I think the voice of our recent alumni is really important because we still have a fresh perspective on what life is like for current law students,” said Dalman, an associate at Savoy & Delahoussaye in Lafayette. “We’ve also been in the workforce for a couple of years, so we know what it’s like to make that transition.”
But like many young alumni, Dalman has found it challenging to stay connected with LSU Law as he’s been working to establish and advance his nascent career.
“Unfortunately, the voice of our most recent alumni is often not as prominent in the discussion because they’re also some of our busiest alumni,” he said.
Determined to reconnect with the Law Center, Dalman and former classmate Patrick Riley (’21) met with LSU Law Dean Alena Allen over lunch last spring to discuss their experiences as recent graduates.
Both had served in leadership roles during their final year of studies at LSU Law—Riley as Student Bar Association president and Dalman as vice president—and each wanted to ensure they would retain a voice in shaping the Law Center’s future despite their busy schedules.
Allen encouraged them to join the Dean’s Council, through which alumni can make meaningful contributions to LSU Law and gain valuable networking opportunities through a modest annual financial pledge and a minimal time investment.
To help boost Dean’s Council membership among young alumni and increase engagement, Allen has implemented changes in the membership fee structure to make it more affordable for LSU Law’s most recent graduates.
While the minimum pledge for new graduates to become a member was previously $500, now all new graduates receive a one-year complimentary membership following their commencement. Membership dues for alumni who have graduated within the past six years are now on a sliding scale, with some classes of graduates able to join the Dean’s Council for the first time for as little as $100 a year. See the complete Dean’s Council membership fee structure and join today.
“That lunch with Dean Allen really confirmed my need to stay engaged with the Law Center,” said Dalman. “And at this stage in my career, the Dean’s Council really feels like the ideal way for me to do that without overcommitting myself.”
Dalman and Riley are now among a small—but growing—list of alumni who graduated within the past 10 years who have signed up to become Dean’s Council members.
Shortly after becoming a member last summer, Dalman participated in the bi-annual virtual meeting with Allen, during which he and other members heard about recent developments at the Law Center and had the opportunity to provide direct feedback.
In the days following the meeting, Dalman further learned that he’d also won the Dean’s Council lottery for LSU football tickets, and he and his wife attended the Nicholls vs. Tigers game the following weekend.
As one of the Dean’s Council’s youngest members, Dalman now hopes to leverage his unique perspective as a recent graduate in ways that improve current law students’ experiences at LSU Law.
“This will allow me to stay up to date with the developments at the Law Center, as well as provide my perspective as a recent alum to the conversation about how to maintain LSU Law’s ability to shape Louisiana’s next generation of legal minds,” he said.
Dalman’s dedication to his alma mater stems from his leadership experience as SBA vice president, which coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“It was a very crucial, critical time for the law school population,” he recalled. “We quickly had to pivot from planning all these fun things to ‘how can we maintain as much of the student life as we safely can?’”
His role also taught him how to communicate effectively with administrators while advocating for students.
“You learn how to interact with the administration differently—not necessarily more or less—but in a way in which you are fulfilling your duty to your constituents,” said Dalman, who was also a member of the Board of Advocates and Senior Editor of the LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources.
After earning his law degree in the spring of 2021, Dalman worked for Gachassin Law Firm in Lafayette for about two and a half years before joining Savoy & Delahoussaye in November 2023, when the firm was launched by LSU Law alumni Julie Savoy (’02) and Gary Delahoussaye (’98).
“We just celebrated a year of having opened the doors, and I’d say we’re the most experienced new firm doing what we do,” said Dalman, who primarily works in healthcare litigation and malpractice defense. “Julie Savoy had an entire career in nursing and infection control prior to going to LSU Law and graduating in 2002, and Gary Delahoussaye has been doing this type of healthcare litigation for over a decade. I feel very lucky to be working alongside and learning from each of them.”
