The Faculty Lounge

John Trasviña Named Dean Of USF Law

The University of San Francisco School of Law named John Trasviña its new dean last week.   Trasviña, who holds a JD from Stanford, is currently the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Opportunity in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  He was previously President and General Counsel of MALDEF.  

David Herring Named Dean Of New Mexico Law

Professor David Herring, from the University of Pittsburgh, has been named the new dean of the University of New Mexico law school.  Herring, who served as dean of Pitt from 1998 to 2005, holds a JD from Michigan.  As an interesting side note, Herring was a Bigelow Fellow was back in 1986-7.  I wonder how many other former fellows have become deans.

Susan Prager Leaving AALS To Lead Southwestern Law

Susan Westerberg Prager, the executive director and chief executive officer of the AALS - and former dean of UCLA Law School - has announced that she will be leaving Washington, DC and returning to Los Angeles.  She will be the new Dean and Chief Executive Officer at Southwestern Law School.  The huge loss for the AALS is Southwestern's incredible gain. Congratulations to all.

Dean Search Announcement: Samford / Cumberland

Dan has previously mentioned that Samford / Cumberland will be looking for a new dean to succeed John Carroll, who is stepping down from the helm in 2014.  You can find details on the search at this link.

Updated Law School Dean Search List

Here's all the information I have thus far on dean hiring.  I imagine we may see one or two additional hires, and several new openings, before the end of May.

John F. Sutton, Jr.: 1918-2013

Longtime University of Texas law professor John F. Sutton, Jr. passed away at the age of 95 in recent days.  Sutton joined the UT law faculty in 1957, served as dean from 1979 to 1984, and retired about ten years ago.

Additional reading here (obituary), here (Austin American-Statesman), and here (ABA Journal).

Dean Search Announcement: Faulkner

From an email that I received earlier today:

Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, located in Montgomery, Alabama, seeks applications and nominations for the position of Dean.  Additional information can be found here.

Lisa Kloppenberg Named Dean Of Santa Clara Law

Professor Lisa Kloppenberg from the University of Dayton has been named the new dean of the Santa Clara University School of Law.  Kloppenberg previously served as Dayton's law school dean for ten years, from 2001 to 2011,  She holds a JD from the University of Southern California.

Mike Rice Fallout: Rutgers - Newark Dean Named University General Counsel

The Rutgers University basketball coaching crisis has now made its mark on law schools.  Rutgers - Newark Dean John Farmer, the former attorney general of New Jersey, has been named General Counsel of the University.  He replaces John Wolf, the university GC who resigned as part of the continuing fallout from disclosure of the videos.  This will be an interim appointment.  Professor Ron Chen will temporarily take over the deanship until Farmer returns - allegedly in 12 to 18 months.

Deanship Announcement: Montana

From an email message I received earlier today:

The University of Montana School of Law, one of the few law schools to see an increase in applications this year, will soon be starting a national dean search. Irma Russell, who has served as dean of Montana Law since 2009, has announced that she plans to step down. She will remain as dean during the transition, and will join the faculty upon the appointment of her successor.

Deanship Update: Campbell

Bankruptcy judge J. Rich Leonard has been named the new law dean at Campbell.  Judge Leonard completed his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina, and he earned a law degree at Yale.  He has served on the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of North Carolina since 1992.  Judge Leonard has been the editor in chief of the prestigious American Bankruptcy Law Journal since 2011.  And a few months ago he published a children's book entitled The House by the Creek, "a tale of the Revolutionary War set in NC, filled with bravery and surprises, and based on a family legend."

Click here for additional reading.

Clark on SLU

I think faculty lounge readers will be very interested in Annette Clark's thoughtful and thought-provoking reflection on the events surrounding her departure as dean at SLU, "Postscript to a Deanship," which appeared recently in the Toledo Law Review.   There is a lot in the article that's worthy of comment and reflection.  The article reminds me that I should have said something last year when my friend and former colleague Phil Pucillo was blogging about about SLU here at the faculty lounge.  Some people questioned why Phil, who's not a SLU faculty member, was blogging about this -- and I guess that was related to his urging faculty members to speak out.  Phil is one of my heroes for having taken a stand in favor of faculty governance when he was on the Ave Maria faculty.  His stand for faculty governance makes him an ideal person to comment on the situation at SLU and also to give some perspective on the likely consequences for everyone involved -- and the reasons why faculty might remain silent, as well as why they might speak out.

By the way, many congratulations to the Seattle University law school's community on recruitng Annette Clark as their dean.

Richard Bales Named Dean Of Ohio Northern Law

Professor Rick Bales of Northern Kentucky University School of Law has been selected as the new law school dean at Ohio Northern University.  Bales, who holds a JD from Cornell, joined the NKU faculty in 1998.  His primary (but not sole) focus area is employment law and he is a longtime blogger at Workplace Prof Blog.  Let's hope he blogs as dean!  (Dan Rodriguez certainly did - for a while at least.)

Thomas Guernsey Named Dean Of Thomas Jefferson Law

Thomas Guernsey, a member of the faculty at Albany Law School and Albany's dean from 2002-11, has been named the new President and Dean of Thomas Jefferson School of Law.  Guernsey previously served as dean at Southern Illinois Law.  He holds a JD from Wayne State.  

Idaho Law Dean, Donald Burnett, Named Interim University President

Don Burnett, who has served as the dean of the University of Idaho College of Law since 2002, has been named Interim President of the University.  Burnett was previously the law dean at the University of Louisville.  He replaces President Duane Nellis who is moving to Lubbock to lead  Texas Tech.

Annette Clark Named Dean Of Seattle Law

This time, she drops the "interim".  Annette Clark, seven months past the SLU debacle, has now been named dean of Seattle University School of Law.  Clark, who served as interim dean at Seattle in the 2009-10 school year, holds a JD from the University of Puget Sound - Seattle's predecessor institution.  She was the dean at Saint Louis University Law from 2011 to 2012.

I can hear the smiles all the way back to the East Coast.

Jeffrey Standen To Be Dean Of Northern Kentucky Law

Professor Jeffrey Standen, the associate dean for faculty at Willamette University College of Law, has been named the new dean at Northern Kentucky University College of Law.  Standen, who received his JD from Virginia, has been at Willamette since 1990.

Hamilton Named Dean at UNLV

I'm delighted to report that my friend (and co-editor) Daniel W. Hamilton has just been named dean at UNLV's William S. Boyd School of Law.   Dan is currently associate dean for faculty development at the University of Illinois and he teaches and writes in the areas of property and legal history.   His work includes the wonderfully thoughtful and engaging book  The Limits of Sovereignty: Property Confiscation in the Union and the Confederacy During the Civil War, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2007.

Dan's appointment adds to the number of legal historians who are deans, including Dave Douglas at William and Mary, Greg Mark at DePaul, Robert Post at Yale, Bruce Smith at Illinois, Avi Soifer at Hawaii, Ray Solomon at Rutgers, and Bill Treanor at Georgetown.

Here is UNLV's press release.  Congratulations to Dan and UNLV!

Andrew Klein Named Dean At Indiana-Indianapolis Law

Professor Andy Klein of Indiana University-Indianapolis School of Law has been named the school's dean effective July 1.  Klein, who holds a JD from Emory, has has served in the IUPUI Chancellor’s Cabinet as chief of staff since 2010.  In 2012, he also became the university's associate vice chancellor for academic affairs.  He joined the IU-I faculty in 2000, after teaching at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law.

Timothy Fisher Named New Dean Of Connecticut Law

The University of Connecticut School of Law has selected,  Tim Fisher, a partner in the Hartford office of McCarter and English, as its new dean.  Fisher is a graduate of Columbia Law School.  He will start on July 1.  The other finalists were James Hackney, Edward Stein and Joseph McDougald.