Meet Dean Yeager

Steve Yeager

Stephen B. Yeager

Assistant Dean for Student Affairs & Faculty Supervisor, Corporate Counsel Externship Program

Stephen B. Yeager is the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at SMU Dedman School of Law.  In this role, he assists law students with personal and academic issues and works closely with the Student Bar Association and over 40 other student groups.  In addition, he presents programs on a number of issues, including law school success, financial education, wellness, and academic integrity.

Dean Yeager was instrumental in launching the law school’s Haynes & Boone Inns of Court Program, which provides students with a source of relationships and support. Through the Inns, students connect with fellow classmates, faculty, student leaders, career advisors, and alumni for a community experience that extends throughout their time at the law school and beyond graduation.  

He is the creator and Faculty Supervisor of the SMU Dedman Law Corporate Counsel Externship Program, an innovative academic program for third-year and international law students that combines a corporate counsel course with externships in corporate legal departments.  Now in its eighth year, this program has grown into the premier corporate externship program in the nation.  This past year, approximately 100 students worked with 90 different companies where they were placed based on their practice area or industry interests.



Dean Yeager serves on the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Robert B. Rowling Center for Business Law & Leadership.  Outside the law school, he sits on the board of the SMU Faculty Club, where he serves as treasurer.  He also serves as an SMU Deputy Title IX Coordinator, on the President’s Commission on the Needs of Persons with Disabilities, and on the Training Board for the SMU Police Department.

Dean Yeager is the co-author of Inside Counsel – Practices, Strategies and Insights 2d ed (West 2020), with Marc I. Steinberg, the Rupert and Lillian Radford Professor of Law.  

Prior to coming to SMU, Dean Yeager was in private practice for 16 years, first at Jones Day and then as general counsel of a private financial services company.  He received his undergraduate and law degrees at Southern Methodist University.  His wife Amy, also an SMU Dedman Law alum, is Executive Vice President & Chief Legal Officer of Children's Health.  Their son Carson graduated from SMU and their daughter Alexandra currently attends SMU.

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