Want To Be A Law Dean? No Need For A Top 5 JD.

There's been a little buzz recently about the relationship between where you got your JD and your likelihood of getting a law teaching job.  Kaimi Wenger offered up good advice (and valuable links) for folks with JD's from non-superelite law schools.  (He calls them the Top 5, but really its more like the Top 7 or 8). Michael Risch consolidated a lot of blogospheric advice here. Marc DeGirolami artfully adds to the conversation with a contemplation on the fate of those with JD's outside the top 15.   To sum it up: it's tough, but not impossible, to get a teaching job if your JD doesn't come from an elite law school.  And if you want to snag one of these positions, get to know people, consider a fellowship, write a lot, and choose a relatively unpopular doctrinal area.

But this led me to wonder: what was the educational pedigree of the folks who've recently accepted new law school deanships?  Our list of dean searches (and their outcomes)  is here.  Keep in mind that virtually none of the new hiring law schools are themselves superelites or elites - but for most of us, the more relevant question is: what's happening in the 180 schools that aren't in the top 20?

It turns out that the backgrounds of these new deans look dramatically different than Larry Solum's entry level hiring report.  These 25 new appointments come from 15 different law schools.  They are such a diverse lot that only six law schools produced more than one dean this year - and two of these six are law schools that are far outside the normal lists of elites.  The other nine schools are a mixed lot as well, including superelites, plain-vanilla elites, and a flock of other law schools that most of us would consider very good teaching gigs or law review placements.  (The actual breakout is below the jump.) 

What explains the diversity of JD producers at the decanal level?  There are surely a variety of explanations.  One simple reason: because deans are more senior, and come from an era of more varied  hiring, it only makes sense that we'd see JD diversity in this group.  Another possible explanation: once in the academy, the nerdiest types rarely become deans (at least at law schools that can't raise money based on brand alone.)  The Indiana Law graduate who snags a teaching job almost certainly has strong social skills - talents that would not be required of the Yale JD/PhD.   A third possiblity: folks with non-elite JD's try harder.  And yet another: people with non-elite JD's are actually much more talented than their elite counterparts, or else they never would have scored a job in the first place. 

Whatever the reasons, here is the list of the new law deans, organized by JD school:

Yale: Allan Vestal (Drake) Drucilla Ramey (Golden Gate) Bruce Smith (Illinois) Kevin Washburn (New Mexico) Davison Douglas (William & Mary)

Harvard: James Rasband (BYU) Matthew Diller (Cardozo) Michael Simons (St. Johns)

Duquesne: Donald Guter (South Texas) Phoebe Haddon (Maryland)

Florida: David Brennen (Kentucky) Penelope Bryan (Whittier)

Michigan: Lloyd Semple (Detroit Mercy) Patricia White (Miami)

Stanford: Lawrence Ponoroff (Arizona) Stephen Easton (Wyoming)

Columbia: George Johnson (Elon)

Georgetown: John Farmer (Rutgers-Newark)

Indiana: Kellye Testy (Washington)

Iowa: Kevin Smith (Memphis)

Kansas: Irma Russell (Montana)

Penn: Jennifer Rosato (Northern Illinois)

UC Hastings: Nell Newton (Notre Dame)

UCLA: Victor Gold (Loyola – LA)

Washington & Lee: John DiPippa (Arkansas - Little Rock)

Comments

[Alfred]

Dan--very interesting stuff. Opens up lots of possibilities for speculation as to why deans are so different in background from the entry-level. (Though we should probably be comparing what the entry-level list looked like circa 1985, or whenever it was that the current crop of deans entered teaching.)

One small point: Matthew Diller is the new dean at Cardozo (not Fordham); he's coming from Fordham.

[Dan Filler]

Al - fixed!

[Matt]

Another small correction- Patricia White is the new dean for Miami, not Michigan, as listed here.

As I noted before, I was quite interested by Stephen Easton, the new dean at Wyoming, who, while he went to Stanford, started out his college career at a community college and graduated from Dickinson State University in North Dakota, a school that I'm sure he'll not mind saying has a modest academic reputation, especially for producing academics.

I also wonder how many of these people spent some time at their JD institution, as a sort of stepping stone. My impression (a rough one) is that it wasn't that unusual some years ago for good but not very top law schools to hire, after some seasoning in clerkships and practice, their very top graduates. This seems less common to me now, looking at Solum's data. Similarly, Nell Newton was not only a graduate of Hastings, but was dean of Hastings before moving to Notre Dame. I don't think this sort of thing diminishes at all the impressiveness of the achievements, but it might help explain some of how it happened.

[Anon]

Doesnt it seem clear that the "Dean's List" reflects hiring trends from 20 or more years ago, such that in 20 or more years the only persons who will be rising to Deanships will be those from the top 7-8 schools? This doesnt strike me as too remarkable.

[Jacqueline Lipton]

Isn't it also true that many schools are looking for (and some finding) less "traditional" dean candidates? In tougher economic times, schools might be more focused on skills like proven management and fund-raising ability, rather than academic credentials? Thus, people who didn't go to elite schools, but did go into careers where they developed this more "decanal" set of skills may be getting a lot of the dean jobs now. This may mean that in 20 years we won't, in fact, be seeing deans coming from the 7-8 schools sending folks into academia now. In fact, we may be seeing a much broader range because we will be looking at folks who chose less academic and more management-focused pathways.

[Orin Kerr]

I think all of these explanations are good ones, although I suspect Jacqueline in particular is on to something. Deans are increasingly seen as experienced managers and fund raisers rather than as scholars-who-just-happened-to-spend-some-time-in-the-front-office. There is still a tension between the two role, and most schools try to have deans who excel at both roles, but my sense is that it is increasingly considered acceptable to have a Dean who is known as a great manager and fundraiser but may not be a scholarly star.

[Brian]

It is not correct, as far as I know, that hiring was more varied a generation ago than now. Is there any evidence to support that claim?

13 of the 25 Deans come from law schools that traditionally produce large numbers of law teachers; if we add Penn, Georgetown, and UCLA, then it's 16 of 25. So that's 64% from elite law schools. Given the small sample size here, this doesn't strike me as very surprising. But even supposing that a higher percentage of non-elite JDs are Deans than secure faculty positions, isn't the most likely explanation (as Orin notes) that scholarly ability is not a requirement for being Dean, while (in theory) it is for being hired and tenured?

[Supra Shoes]

Health is above wealth. /Health is happiness.