Elena Kagan, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Martha Minow

Martha Minow Named New Dean of Harvard Law School

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A replacement for Elena Kagan as dean of Harvard Law School has been named. It’s the well-liked law school professor Martha Minow.
Harvard University President Drew Faust announced the news to HLS students, today:

I am delighted to let you know that Martha Minow has agreed to serve as the next Dean of Harvard Law School. She will take up her duties on July 1.
Martha has been a member of the HLS faculty since 1981, and she has served the school with extraordinary dedication and energy. She is an eminent scholar of uncommon range and imagination, a greatly admired teacher who guided the school’s recent curricular review, and an outstanding citizen not only of the Law School but of the University, with impressive experience in academic leadership roles. She has a clear-eyed view of the challenges and opportunities facing the Law School, and a talent for bringing people together to work through important academic and institutional issues. Most of all, she has a passion for the law and for all that legal scholarship, education, and practice can do to advance the public good. I look forward to welcoming Martha to the University’s Council of Deans and to working closely with her in the years to come.

Faust also thanked interim Dean Howell Jackson for his service over the past few months.
More on Minow after the jump.


Minow seemed ready for the challenges of leading the law school during these difficult times. The Harvard Gazette reports:

“I am deeply honored and humbled by the opportunity to serve as the next dean of Harvard Law School,” said Minow. “I am grateful to Drew Faust for inviting me to assume this vital role, and I will do my best to enhance and build upon the extraordinary leadership of past deans Elena Kagan and Robert Clark, and the wise and thoughtful stewardship of Acting Dean Howell Jackson. In this time of both challenge and promise for this country and for the world, Harvard Law School faculty, students, staff, and graduates are already playing pivotal roles in the search for financial stability, national security, peaceful international relations, and legal order. I am eager to help the remarkable community of people at the Harvard Law School, in concert with colleagues across Harvard and beyond, continue to pursue the promise of the rule of law, the ideal of justice, the practical solution of problems, and ever deeper understandings of legal institutions and commitments.”

Minow’s appointment is yet another indication that Harvard law students and Yale law students can get along:

After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, Minow received a master’s degree in education from Harvard and her law degree from Yale. She clerked for Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States. She joined the Harvard Law faculty as an assistant professor in 1981, was promoted to professor in 1986, was named the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of Law in 2003, and became the Jeremiah Smith Jr., Professor of Law in 2005.

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Not only does Minow follow in Kagan’s footsteps as a former clerk for Justice Marshall, both women also teach Civil Procedure. My personal recollection was that Minow’s class was much “nicer” than Kagan’s, but I might think that because Kagan inflicted Socratic scars that burn my skin to this day.
We wish Dean Minow the best of luck.
Now, about loan repayment assistance for recent graduates who have lost their job during the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression …
Martha Minow named dean of Harvard Law School [Harvard Gazette]
Earlier: Howell Jackson Named Acting Dean of HLS
Breaking: Elena Kagan to Solicitor General

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