Law School Deans, Law Schools

Meet A New Law School Dean: An Interview With Judge Gail Prudenti

Hofstra Law's new leader describes her plans for improving bar exam passage and job placement.

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Judge Gail Prudenti, new dean of Hofstra Law

Judge Gail Prudenti, new dean of Hofstra Law

Back in February, I suggested that Judge Gail Prudenti, interim dean at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, would be “a great choice” for the deanship on a long-term basis. It seems I wasn’t alone in holding that opinion. Last week, the university announced that Judge Prudenti would become the tenth dean of Hofstra Law.

I enjoyed my chat earlier this year with Judge Prudenti about Hofstra Law’s dramatic increase in applications during the current admissions cycle. So I thought she’d be a good subject for our occasional series, Meet A New Law School Dean.

I connected with Judge Prudenti by phone earlier today. After discussing a mutual friend, celebrated litigator Ed Hayes — described by Judge Prudenti as “a wonderful, loyal friend, so straightforward and honest, who always tells you what he thinks” — we plunged into discussion of her plans for Hofstra Law and her reflections on legal education more generally.

Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of our conversation.

DL: You had a tremendous career in the judiciary, rising to become Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts of New York State. In that role, you supervised a court system with a $2.7 billion budget and more than 18,000 judicial and non-judicial employees. When did you leave the judiciary, and why would you relinquish such a coveted post?

GP: I left the judiciary in July 2015, when I was 62 and eligible for retirement. I had been a judge for almost 24 years, serving in almost every capacity in the court system. I made application for the position of chief judge and was found qualified, one of seven names sent to the governor. The governor selected Judge Janet DiFiore — and I’m delighted he did. If he wasn’t going to select me, I would have wanted him to select her.

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At that point in my career, I asked myself: am I going to stay in the court system, or am I going to have another challenge in my life? Having served under two wonderful chief judges, Judith Kaye and Jonathan Lippman, I felt that the new chief had the right to her own chief administrative judge — and that I was ready for a new adventure.

DL: What brought you to Hofstra?

GP: I was talking to Chief Judge Lippman, who was leaving in December of that year, and explained that I would probably try to join some sort of nonprofit organization as executive director. He had different ideas for me, suggesting that I broaden my horizons and keep my options open, and connected me with Stuart Rabinowitz, president of Hofstra. I met President Rabinowitz on a number of occasions and learned more about Hofstra’s Center for Children, Families and the Law, which really resonated with me. I believe the legal system can and should help families in crisis. So I joined Hofstra as executive director of the center, a position I continue to hold.

DL: And how did you move from that post to the deanship?

GP: All law schools are facing their challenges, especially in the New York metropolitan area, where there is great competition for fewer students and fewer dollars. President Rabinowitz and Dean Eric Lane asked me, based on my administrative experience as a judge, if I could be Dean Lane’s adviser on certain issues. I agreed. Then, about six months before my appointment as interim dean, the president and dean asked me to become senior associate dean of operations, a post I also assumed. When Dean Lane decided he wanted to return to the faculty and write another book, I was asked by the president to step in as interim dean, effective January 2017, which I did.

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To fill the permanent deanship, the university engaged a search firm and went through a national process. I was asked if I wanted to make application for the position, which I did, and my appointment as dean was announced earlier this month.

DL: These are tough times for legal education. Why would you want to become a law school dean at this point in time?

GP: Based on my year and a half at Hofstra, I truly feel there are unique opportunities here for students and for the school. As part of a very vibrant university, Hofstra Law is perfectly positioned for these changing times.

As a judge, I did an incredible amount of administrative work. I served as chief administrative judge during one of the most difficult times for the court system, when we had to cut our budget by more than $100 million. I like to step into challenging situations and make a positive change. Serving as dean allows me to use the management and leadership skills I honed over all my years in the court system.

I arrived at Hofstra wondering, “Am I going to fit in? Am I going to be an asset?” And now I feel differently — I feel less like an “I” and more like a “we,” part of the broader community of faculty, administrators, students, and alumni, as well as the legal community as a whole and our community at large.

DL: What do you hope to focus on during your next five years as dean?

GP: I intend to focus on the core, the law school’s mission of sending our graduates out into the workforce both practice-ready and with social responsibility. Practicing law is a privilege, not a right, and I want to instill that in our graduates. The students here truly want to serve the public good while meeting their own professional goals, and I’ve already developed a great fondness for them and want to help them succeed.

I want Hofstra Law students to be viewed in the marketplace not just as competent, but as extraordinary, and not just as acceptable, but as preferable. These are the qualities that will attract students to our school.

This requires a reasonable student-to-faculty ratio. To that end, I will be recruiting and hiring several new tenure-track professors.

DL: How do you plan to achieve these goals, including more faculty hiring, during this economically challenging period?

GP: I have launched an affordability study, a comprehensive study of everything we do — exactly the way I approached the court system when its budget needed attention. It’s a top-to-toe review to find where we can be more efficient.

And I will be launching a three- to five-year fundraising campaign. We do have to fundraise, and fundraising is a major part of my job as dean.

DL: Hofstra has had some issues with bar exam passage in the past. What are your plans on that front?

GP: With regard to raising the bar exam passage rate, we have launched a program called “Raising the Bar.” This involved changes to the first-year curriculum, as well as a diagnosis in the second year — this year we used Themis Bar Review — to help students identify their strengths and weaknesses for the bar. Then in the third year, all students must take a mandatory course, Perspectives in Legal Analysis and Writing, designed to help them prepare for the bar.

DL: We’ve heard about Perspectives here at Above the Law. Some current students complained to us about the imposition of a bar exam review course as a new graduation requirement for all students, not just the bottom 50 percent of the class, and these students claimed it was instituted without enough consultation. What would you say in response to these concerns?

GP: We have listened to our students’ concerns and have made a change, just for this year, so that students in the top 50 percent can opt out. Helping our students pass the bar on their first attempt is one of our top priorities, and we are committed to developing programming that best positions them to succeed. Moving forward, I will be requesting student input earlier in the process of creating new programs.

DL: We spoke previously about the surge in applications to Hofstra Law, which raises a question: should the law school change the size of its entering class, either to grow it or shrink it?

GP: I have been focusing on our admissions process, with the help of so many talented colleagues here at Hofstra. We have received 75 percent more applications than the previous year, and we hope to use this opportunity to improve our LSAT and GPA figures.

DL: When we spoke before, you talked about the importance of finding jobs for graduates. What are your plans on that front?

GP: Our graduate placement is going very well. Almost 80 percent of our graduates find full-time, legal employment ten months after graduation. And we are strengthening programs that will make our graduates even more appealing to employers, such as our trial techniques program, our health law and policy institute, our veterans’ clinic, and our new deportation defense clinic.

DL: One major critique of legal education is that it’s too expensive. What size tuition increases is Hofstra looking at for the upcoming academic year or future years, and what can be done to keep those increases in check?

GP: We do our budget on an annual basis, projecting out a number of years. We are trying to keep tuition increases as modest as we possibly can. At this point, we are talking somewhere around a 2 percent increase, but if we don’t have to do that, we won’t. So that’s why it’s so important for us to do a comprehensive study and see where we can save money — and then pass those savings along to our students, by making our tuition as competitive possible.

DL: On a broader level, what do you view as the greatest challenge facing legal education today?

GP: The greatest challenge relates to finances and job placement. While the number of legal jobs is growing, it isn’t growing at the same pace as it was years ago. So we need to keep legal education relevant. What are the skills that our students need to succeed in the legal market? Technology is at the forefront, as well as interdisciplinary practice. We might introduce some joint degree programs, such as a JD/RN or JD/MD program, for example.

This is an exciting time at Hofstra Law, which will be 50 years old in 2020. We have been innovative in the past, which has helped us reach this milestone, and we will be innovative in the future.

DL: Indeed. Congratulations on your new post, and good luck to you as you lead Hofstra Law into its second half-century!

Judge A. Gail Prudenti Named 10th Dean of Hofstra Law [Hofstra Law]
Prudenti Named Hofstra’s New Law Dean [New York Law Journal]

Earlier: Are Law School Applications Bottoming Out? One School Sees A Remarkable Rise
Meet A New Law School Dean: An Interview With Vikram Amar
The Next Dean Of Yale Law School (And Other Law Dean News)
An Afternoon With Ed Hayes, Celebrated Litigator and Memoirist

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 [email protected].

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