Academic

Note to New Deans

By Scott Taylor

    First let me express thanks and gratitude to the founders and bloggers of the Faculty Lounge.  It is a great blog, and I am happy to join as a guest blogger.

    Al Brophy and I concur that you bold souls who are willing to undertake the unpleasant task of taking up the helm of a law school deserve our gratitude and our praise.  Being a dean of a law school takes an incredible amount of time, effort, and expertise.  Accordingly, you law deans, especially you new ones, should make sure that you receive compensation worthy of the task.  I assume that some of you prospective deans may be checking in at the Faculty Lounge because Al Brophy and Dan Filler keep a current list of law dean searches.

    Paul Caron?s TaxProf Blog has reported that 2006 law dean salaries at top law schools averaged $460,000.  The source of this data comes from a confidential survey undertaken by the federal judiciary.  You new deans should be aware that you may be able to find precise salary data from non-public law schools based on the IRS Form 990 filed every year by tax-exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.    

    I took a look at the Form 990s (2006) for Drake, Golden Gate, Notre Dame, South Texas, and Whittier.  These forms are available on-line at the Foundation Center?s website.  For each institution?s fiscal year, I found, in no particular order, this range in deans? salaries.

$198,000

$233,643

$267,030

$300,000

$336,925

    I was surprised at the range and, quite frankly, concluded that some of those deans were woefully underpaid, explaining, perhaps why the positions were vacant.

    In any case, I advise all of you dean candidates, as part of your job interview preparation, to check the latest Form 990 for the institutions where you will be interviewing or have interviewed.  In terms of salaries, the Form 990 lists the five highest paid employees other than officers (Schedule A, Part I).  You also should check on the form Part V-A (compensation of current officers) and Part V-B (compensation of past officers), which might be a place where a current dean?s name may be found, together with salary information.

    If you are interviewing at law school that is part of a state university, then you will not find a Form 990 for the institution.  Instead, you are likely to find a Form 990 for the university?s foundation, which is an entity often used for fund raising.  You should probably take a look at that form to see how the entire university?s fund raising efforts are going.  Finally, remember that these forms are for 2006.  Current salaries are probably higher, so you should always put in an inflation adjustment.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on February 15, 2009 (boomark / email).