Law School Deans, Law Schools

The Next Dean Of Yale Law School (And Other Law Dean News)

Congratulations to a great scholar and teacher!

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yale law schoolUPDATE (2/21/2017): It’s official: congratulations to Professor Heather Gerken, the next dean of Yale Law School! Here is the YLS announcement.

Last October, after Robert Post announced his intention to step down as dean of Yale Law School at the end of this academic year, we wondered: who would be the next dean of the nation’s top law school?

We have an answer for you. It’s not yet official, but barring something unforeseen happening at the university level (the YLS faculty has already voted), the seventeenth dean of Yale Law School will be Heather Gerken, currently the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at YLS. Congratulations, Professor Gerken!

As I know from talking to my fellow YLS alumni and to current faculty members and students, it would be hard to imagine a better pick than Professor Gerken. She is an eminent scholar, one of the nation’s leading experts in constitutional law and election law. She is an acclaimed teacher, having won numerous teaching awards at both Yale and Harvard, where she previously taught. And she is a prized colleague, both respected and liked by her fellow YLS profs.

Over the past year or so, Professor Gerken has been spearheading efforts to improve diversity at Yale Law (as she discussed in these pages with our diversity columnist, Renwei Chung). Of course, she will be contributing to diversity simply by taking on her new role: she will be the first woman dean ever at Yale Law School.

(Harvard Law School, Yale’s archrival, has already had two women as dean, Elena Kagan and Martha Minow. The next milestone for HLS: appointing a person of color as dean.)

Diversity goes beyond race and gender, of course — and Professor Gerken appreciates this as well. As one alum told me, “She’s genuinely committed to leveling the playing field for students coming from less privileged backgrounds, and so I think she’ll make a great dean in that respect.”

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(Perhaps the worst thing that can be said about Professor Gerken relates to the (brutally competitive) process of clerkship hiring: competition for her coveted recommendations can bring out the inner gunner in many a Yale law student. But you know what they say: all’s fair in love and clerkship hiring. See generally Supreme Ambitions.)

We reached out to both Yale Law School and Professor Gerken, and both declined to comment. This is certainly understandable, given that the appointment is not yet official and still pending at the university level. But I will be (very, very) surprised — and personally disappointed — if we don’t hear quite soon about Dean Gerken.

By the way, the past few months have been a busy time in terms of law law school dean hiring. See, e.g., the page on law school deans over at The Faculty Lounge. Deans are stepping down and getting appointed left and right, it seems.

From the West Coast, here’s news of a new deanship opening that just broke. Students at the University of Washington Law School yesterday learned that their current dean, Kellye Teste, will be concluding her eight years of service as dean over the coming summer (announcement email posted on the next page).

Here is one current student’s (rather positive) assessment of Dean Testy’s tenure:

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She largely did good for UW Law. I think the recent rankings drop isn’t a reflection of her skill but rather the more constrained environment for top 50 law schools competing for top applicants. We have a bigger national presence than before, and the young and brilliant faculty she has been hiring reflect that.

I think she made a big misstep in 2015 with the UW Law Tacoma fiasco, but after the huge outcry over the lack of transparency and its feasibility, she acknowledged that and pivoted to trying to improve outreach to and pipeline-building for south Puget Sound students, which is a goal everyone could get behind.

UW Law is in a good place. My fear is that there is only more dramatic change in store for law schools, so a transition to a new dean is fraught with risk. But since she’s giving several months notice, hopefully we can find someone who can steer the ship through inevitable rocky shoals.

Indeed — and this student should draw comfort from the fact that UW is far from alone in needing a new dean for the next academic year.

For example, as noted earlier, Harvard must now find someone to fill the big shoes of Martha Minow. And Hofstra Law, whose last dean departed amid controversy, also needs a new leader. (Assuming she’s interested, Judge Gail Prudenti, the current acting dean, would be a great choice; she has presided over a big jump in applications at Hofstra, and she understands the importance of finding good jobs for students and graduates.)

Have interesting news or rumor you’d like to share with us about a law school dean departure, arrival, or search? Please feel free to email us. In the meantime, (provisional) congratulations to Professor Gerken on her (likely) new post.

(Flip to the next page to read the email that UW Law students received from Dean Kellye Teste.)

UPDATE (2/21/2017): It’s official: congratulations to Professor Heather Gerken, the next dean of Yale Law School! Here is the YLS announcement.

Earlier: Dean Of Most Prestigious Law School In America To Step Down
Yale Law School Once Again Tops U.S. News Rankings, Aims To Improve Diversity And Inclusion
Now Would Be A Good Time For Harvard Law To Appoint Its First Dean Of Color
Are Law School Applications Bottoming Out? One School Sees A Remarkable Rise

DBL square headshotDavid Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.

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