Katherine-S-Broderick Katherine Broderick. Photo Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Katherine “Shelley” Broderick, who for the past two decades has served as dean of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, will step down from that post this summer.

Broderick announced her departure Monday, saying in a message to the law school community that the decision to leave the deanship was difficult but the “time is right.”

Her deanship is notable not only for its length—she will have been dean for 20 years at a time when the average law deanship hovers around four years—but also for her status among the early wave of women law deans and her political activism, a role many of her dean colleagues shy away from.